


Imperfect Storms

by tinytrash575



Series: Missing Development [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, Anxiety, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Hurt Lydia, Hurt Stiles, Nightmares, Nogitsune Trauma, Not Really A Happy Ending, Post-Nogitsune Stiles Stilinski, RIP Allison Argent, post 3b, slight stalia towards the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-13
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-10-31 06:37:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 17
Words: 51,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10893780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinytrash575/pseuds/tinytrash575
Summary: Takes place after some of the flashbacks in Started out with a kiss. Stiles and Lydia lean on each other as they struggle to piece themselves back together after the events of 3B, but with guilt and grief filling everything and emotions running high, will this bring them closer together or drive them apart?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> So I was re-watching 3B while 6A was airing and I just ended up with a lot of feelings about what could have happened in the space between 3B and 4. Chapter 1 starts on the same day as the second flashback in chapter 1 of Started out with a kiss, and while you may not necessarily have to read Started to understand the fic it would help give context to a lot of the conversations that take place, especially in chapter 1, so I do highly recommend reading Started first. Also just a heads up, some unhealthy eating and sleeping habits are discussed in considerable detail in this fic so be careful if either are a trigger for you.

The small sliver of moon that wasn’t covered by thick clouds shone gently through Lydia’s bedroom window, creating a small curve of pale light on the floor. It was the only light in the room apart from the vicious red glow of the alarm clock, the numbers 01:27 taunting her from her nightstand. She let out a deep sigh, one of many as she sat in total silence and darkness, trying to stop the tears from coming.

Lydia had been thinking hard about what Stiles had said to her earlier at his house, about how not talking about her grief wasn’t good for her. She knew he was right. It had never come easy to Lydia to let people see her vulnerable sides, and right now the thought of talking about Allison was about as appealing as sticking needles in her eyes, but she knew that she couldn’t go on like this. She was empty, broken and exhausted and she just wanted it to stop, but refused to confront the very thing making everything so painful.

Stiles had advised her to just let herself feel, that it would be messy and tiring and would hurt like a bitch, but it was better than bottling it up and not dealing with it at all. This was what she was thinking about right now as she sat up in bed, watching the dark outside of her window. Her thoughts then flickered, and she reached over to her nightstand and grabbed her phone.

She scrolled through her contacts for the number, she didn’t want to accidentally hit one instead of two in the dark and have to listen to Allison’s answer machine.

Stiles noticed that his neck was beginning to ache. He’d been lying atop his bed staring at his laptop screen for the last, he wasn’t sure how long, but long enough that everything had gone blurry and his eyes had started to burn. This had been happening a lot recently, getting so lost in his thoughts that he just zoned out and lost hours, but it was probably the least worrying thing that had been happening to him since they exorcised the Nogitsune so he didn’t think about it too much.

He’d been thinking about what Lydia said earlier, really thinking about it. She’d told him to seriously try and pull himself out of this dark hole his mind had fallen into, and to let his loved ones help him. He wanted to listen to her, he’d even done as she’d suggested and distracted himself by putting on a show that he actually wanted to watch. He thought about how much Lydia said she needed him, and how under any other circumstances that fact probably would’ve made his poor enamoured heart give out, but he couldn’t ignore that voice inside. The one that told him that he deserved to feel nothing but endless misery for the blood on his hands, that any shred of goodness he had left in him was gone, so trying to get better was selfish and futile.

But Stiles knew one thing. He knew that he’d try his damn hardest to be there for Lydia because that is what she deserved, and whether or not that made him feel any less guilty was yet to be determined. He was pulled from his daze by the sound of his phone on the nightstand. It was Lydia’s ringtone.

“Hey,” Said Lydia when he picked up the phone, her voice soft against the silence.

“Hey Lydia, what’s happened? Is everything okay?” Stiles bombarded her with questions, filling with panic as he considered all of the possible reasons why she was calling him in the middle of the night.

“Calm down, nothing’s happened,” She reassured him immediately. He took a moment to let his thoughts catch up as his body flooded with relief that she was okay. “I told you I was going to call you later.”

“That was eight hours and five episodes of _Luther_ ago,” he replied, having completely forgotten that she said she was going to call later. His memory wasn’t exactly at its best right now, what with all the zoning out and not sleeping stuff. “And when you said you would call me later I thought you meant at like, eight, not one thirty in the morning.”

“Well I knew we’d both be awake,” she replied. Her voice had a sadness to it that made his heart hurt.

“So what’s up?” he asked her.

“I told you that I’d call to see how you were doing,” she explained. Lydia could feel some of the profoundly heavy weight lift as she spoke to him. Before, her chest had been so tight and her body so consumed with grief that she felt like she was drowning right there in her bed, but hearing his voice made the pressure ease a little.

“Well I’m fine, don’t worry,” he told her, his voice soft in an attempt to be reassuring, but it just made Lydia close her eyes and suck in a breath because she knew that he wasn’t.

“I think we can rule fine out of the question for both of us,” she pointed out, thinking back to this afternoon where they’d pretty much broken down in front of each other. She knew that they were both far from being okay and didn’t feel the need to forget the fact just because they were trying to help each other recover from this mess.

“Fine, then I’m no different to earlier,” Stiles replied, his tone indicating that he believed the amendment to his statement unnecessary. “Is that better?”

“Yes,” Lydia agreed. “Concerning, but better.”

“Why concerning?” he questioned.

“Because you’re concerning me,” she answered, her voice hitching in that way it did when she was frustrated or upset.

“Yeah well sorry I wasn’t given a handbook on how to recover from possession by a dark fox spirit,” Stiles responded, bitter and sarcastic. Lydia had noticed how much colder he sounded since the possession and she definitely didn’t like it. He was more pessimistic, his sarcasm more biting. She wondered how long it would take for that to fade, if it ever would. It made her stomach knot. The last thing she wanted this whole nightmare to have taken from him was hope.

“It’s not that,” she sighed, closing her eyes in exasperation or desperation or both. “Did you even do any of the things we talked about? Did you talk to your dad?”

“I tried,” he said, already bracing himself for the disappointment in her voice. He’d wanted to say something earlier, so much that his heart had been in his throat, beating a hundred times a minute when his dad walked through the door, but it wasn’t that easy. Nobody could understand what he’d been through while that thing was inside his mind, nobody knew what kind of images remained in his head or how it felt to watch lives be taken by his own hands and have absolutely no power to stop it. None of them could understand what kind of toll that took on a person, and trying to explain it to them would break their hearts. Stiles would happily break his own heart over and over again before breaking the hearts of the people he cared about.

“And?” Lydia’s soft tentative voice said down the line.

“I couldn’t do it, okay,” he confessed, his voice strained with regret. It made Lydia’s heart break a little, hearing how much he’d wanted to do it and thinking about how much he must be inevitably beating himself up over it.  She suddenly felt awful for being so pushy with him. “I’ll try again tomorrow with Scott.”

“Okay,” Lydia murmured, hoping that he knew she wasn’t disappointed in him, that he could hear her accepting that he couldn’t do it. She wished she could articulate the pain she felt for him in her heart, to reassure him that she just wanted him to be okay again, even if that meant giving him the tough love that Scott wouldn’t give him and his dad didn’t even know he needed.

“So what about you?” asked Stiles after a period of silence, his voice less miserable now. “How are you doing?”

“It always gets worse at night,” sighed Lydia, feeling a lump start to form in her throat as she thought about bottomless pit of despair that seemed to swallow her in the middle of the night. How she cried herself to sleep, desperately wishing the pain away when there was no one around to see it.

“Do you want me to come over?” Stiles asked immediately, his tone completely changed. “I’d be happy to.”

“No, it’s ok,” she replied quietly, her heart clenching with how much she wished that he were here and they were having this conversation face to face but twisting with the desire not to burden him by dragging him out of bed when he needs more rest than anyone.

“Seriously I’m bored out of my skull here,” he continued, the pace of his speech quickening. “I’ve been staring at my laptop for the past hour, Google has become a red and blue blob-”

“I worry for your eyes,” Lydia interjected, squinting in exasperation at this boy’s utter refusal to effectively look after himself, even before he was possessed. “Anyway, its fine, you don’t need to come over.”

“You sure?” he asked, his voice softening with concern.

“Yeah,” she confirmed. “I wouldn’t let you get behind the wheel of a car right now if you paid me. Thanks anyway.” They both smiled after that thank you.

“So you’re good?” said Stiles, his tone suggesting that this was the last time he was going to ask her.

“As good as I can be right now,” Lydia answered, sounding warm and relaxed. She thought back to how relieved she felt earlier when she finally told him that she wasn’t coping, how confessing that she was struggling to keep it together every second of every day made her feel so much lighter. “I think today really helped.”

“Well it’s good to know I’m still of some use,” Stiles replied, a solemn flatness to his voice that made Lydia’s heart hurt. He was the most resourceful person she knew, she couldn’t think of where she and the others would be if it wasn’t for him. The thought that he might have forgotten how valued he was, how needed, felt like someone had ripped open her chest and was slowly tearing strips off her.

“You’re always useful,” she said, desperate to make sure that he knew. “Try and believe that.”

“Yeah,” he sighed. He could hear in her voice how much she’d wanted him to remember, to feel useful, needed. The unfortunate thing was that his usefulness was far from the hardest thing he was having trouble believing in right now. He wasn’t even sure it made the top ten.

“Remember we need you,” she added, so softly that he barely heard her. Slow, subtle guilt started flowing though his veins at how hurt she was. She didn’t deserve to feel that way because of him, he wasn’t worth it. He’d wondered many times why she was so keen to help him in the first place when he was the reason her best friend and boyfriend were gone, but he wouldn’t deprive her of the comfort she needed. Stiles didn’t think it was possible for him to deprive Lydia of anything.

“I know,” he told her, just softly enough that she knew at least a part of him believed her, no matter how far down that part of him was right now.

“I’ll call you tomorrow,” she said, glancing out of her window at the clouds rolling through the sky, covering the moon and then revealing it again.

“Don’t you mean later today,” He pointed out. It was almost two am after all.

“I guess I do,” she replied, the sudden realisation that another day had started hitting her. Days all seemed to blur into one at the moment. Nights felt the strangest. That moment when you’re teetering towards a new day and putting the last one behind you felt so surreal to Lydia. She was living a new day but it still felt like the old one, so hearing a reminder that it wasn’t felt oddly jarring.

“And if things get too awful and you want to call earlier than that I’ll probably still be awake,” Stiles added, making sure she knew he was there for her. He wasn’t sleeping if he could help it, so he might as well do the decent thing and be there if she needed him.

“Hopefully I won’t have to,” Lydia replied, her voice tender with the warmth that his reassurance brought her. She knew how the rest of this morning would go. She would sit in total silence for at least another hour, trying to let herself feel even though everything felt like too much to bear, too painful. And then she’d probably cry for another hour until she eventually passed out, her alarm’s shrieking at six am finally rousing her for school.

“Yeah,” said Stiles, closing the single open tab on his laptop while preparing to get off the phone. “Talk to you later then.”

“Talk to you later,” Lydia repeated, the realisation that the sound of his voice would soon be disappearing slowly sinking in. “Bye.”

“Bye Lyds,” he said, and then the line went dead. He stared at his desktop, wondering what he was going to do to fill the hours until dawn broke. He didn’t have many choices, and sleeping was certainly not something he was considering, so he opened a tab again and began browsing Netflix for something to watch.

In the back of his mind, he couldn’t stop thinking about Lydia. Right now she was tearing his heart in two, making every breath he took around her painful, the sound of her voice like a knife twisting in his chest. Of course he would be there for her, it was impossible for him not to be, but he felt so much guilt over the grief that was ripping her to shreds that it made comforting her feel like repeated blows to the chest. He could do this for Lydia, he could let her in, so that she felt better, but a part of him hated himself for it.

Lydia settled against her pillows, deciding that the ceiling would make a much better expanse of space to stare at, and would also strain her back muscles a lot less. She couldn’t help but think about Stiles. Wondering what kind of awful thoughts and horrific images must be constantly running through his head right now. She thought about him lying awake in the middle of the night, his body so tired but determined not to fall asleep because the images that awaited him in his dreams were so much worse than not sleeping at all. It broke her, knowing that he felt he didn’t deserve help, because right now all she wanted to do was cling to him and whisper soft reassurances in his ear, and have him do the same to her. She needed him to help her get through this grief. She’d almost lost him once, she couldn’t do it again. She would support him through this with every bit of energy she had, because knowing that he was okay would be the one sign that things weren’t completely broken.


	2. Chapter 2

Stiles put away the last of the dishes he’d been drying, glancing up at the clock on the kitchen wall with anticipation. He’d been busy all afternoon making the house clean for when Lydia arrived, and it looked like he’d finished just in time because according to the kitchen clock she’d be knocking on his door any second. It had been a spur of the moment decision, arranged last night over the phone, which meant that he only had today to clean the place, including his shit heap of a bedroom. He grimaced at the memory of a sandwich he’d found on his desk that was so hard it could have been used as a hockey puck.

 Needless to say, cleaning the house had sapped most of what little energy Stiles had right now. He stopped, noticing that he was sweating and made his way to the refrigerator, grabbing one of the half empty Gatorade bottles and taking a few sips while contemplating the patheticness of getting sweaty just from doing the dishes.  He supposed that he should be less self critical, as these were exceptional circumstances, and the fact that he’d managed to clean half of the house without passing out was a pretty big accomplishment.

A knock at the door distracted him from his thoughts. With one last glance at the kitchen clock, he placed the bottle of Gatorade back in the refrigerator and went to answer the door. Lydia stood on the porch, a bright pink gym bag slung over one shoulder and her arms holding two bags of popcorn. She greeted him with a smile, titling her head to the side a little.

“Hey,” said Stiles, moving out of the doorway so she could come in the house. She stepped in past him, her bent elbow just brushing his arm.

“So are we setting up in your room or down here?” Lydia asked, her eyes sweeping over the surroundings. The first thing she noticed was that it smelled much nicer as soon as she walked in the door than it had two days ago, and then from over the bags of popcorn she was clutching to her chest she noticed that everything looked much cleaner, meaning that Stiles must have tidied the house up before she got here, and actually did a decent job this time.

“How about we start down here and then move upstairs later,” he suggested, his voice coming from somewhere behind her as they moved into the living room. It was her idea, the movie night, arranged on the grounds that he seriously needed distracting from everything that had happened recently. They’d decided on one rule, no death, which meant that Lydia had a mixture of romantic comedies in her overnight bag to be watched alongside whatever movies he’d selected from his collection.

“Sounds good,” she agreed, heading straight for the couch and dumping her stuff on it.

They discussed the layout of the living room, how they were going to set up and what needed to be moved. Stiles went upstairs and grabbed his duvet and a few blankets, dragging them into the living room for them to sit on and under. He neglected to tell Lydia that he’d almost collapsed while doing it, when his head started rushing and spinning the way it had been doing every time he stood up too fast or turned his head too fast or did pretty much anything that wasn’t sitting or lying down. They moved the coffee table out of the way together, another risky endeavour for Stiles, who nearly dropped the table and fell on his ass thanks to this infuriating head rush thing that kept happening.

While Lydia went to the kitchen to sort the snacks she’d brought with her into bowls, Stiles moved the duvet and blankets into place, spreading the duvet out on the floor before draping the blankets over the top for them to sit under. The coffee table was sat nicely along the edge of the duvet, which was where the snacks that weren’t being eaten would go, and the movies were in a neat pile at the bottom of the duvet, just in front of the TV. He went over to the windows to close the curtains when Lydia sauntered back into the room.

“Popcorn?” she offered, holding two big, full bowls. It wasn’t until this moment that he had really paid attention to Lydia. He found himself taking in the messy bun that her strawberry blonde hair had been pulled up into, the loose shirt and leggings that she’d obviously changed into before coming over because there was no way she’d worn that outfit to school, the warmth in her features as she looked at him. For a second he couldn’t concentrate on anything but her, the wisps of hair that fell and framed her face, the way her shirt hung off her shoulders, leaving one exposed, but then he remembered that he had a job to do and she’d asked him a question.

“No thanks,” he answered, turning away from her and moving over to the curtains. He pulled the first one across, cutting off the dull gleam of weak November sun from outside. “I’m kind of on a liquid diet at the moment,” he said as he pulled the second curtain across. He turned around and caught Lydia shooting him a strange look.

 “Yeah, not by choice, I might add,” he responded, stepping away from the curtains now that they were closed and back towards Lydia. He hoped that she wouldn’t ask. He really didn’t want to discuss the unfortunate problem he was having keeping solid food down with her.

“Yeah,” Lydia said quietly, grimacing a little. “Scott told me about that.”

“He told you,” Stiles replied, raising his eyebrows. He was obviously displeased by this news. Lydia felt a jolt of awkwardness shoot through her.

“It’s my fault,” she confessed, reassuring him that his best friend didn’t just tell her this slightly gross piece of information without reason. “I asked him.”

“You asked him about that specifically?” Stiles questioned, narrowing his eyes in confusion and wondering what the hell kind of conversations they were having if it had resulted in Lydia asking about his stomach problems.

“No, I asked him if you were deliberately not eating,” she responded rather matter-of-factly before heading towards the coffee table to set down the bowls of popcorn since he wasn’t going to take any.

“Oh,” he replied, filling with discomfort as he considered the implications of her admission and what that must have meant she was thinking about him. Lydia went back into the kitchen and Stiles shook off that thought, stepping back towards the couch in the centre of the room. Lydia came back in and unzipped her bag, retrieving two bags of M&M’s and a bag of skittles from inside.

“I wish I could eat,” he explained, watching her as she zipped the bag back up. “I’m getting sick to death of this.”

“Pun intended,” she teased, stepping around the back of the couch to put the bags of candy on the coffee table. He let out a harsh laugh.

“Hilarious,” he replied sarcastically, observing the grin growing across her face. He’d probably be thinking about how beautiful she looked when she smiled if she hadn’t just cracked a joke at his expense. “I’m glad to see that my suffering amuses you so much.”

“Of course it doesn’t,” Lydia laughed, shaking her head at his dramatics. “Now, do you have any soda, or are we going to be drinking water for the rest of the day?”

“In the fridge,” he answered, watching her make her way back into the kitchen.

They put the first movie on at about four thirty. It was one of Lydia’s, having won the coin toss that Stiles had insisted they do to decide who got to pick a movie first. They settled down on the floor, sitting with their backs against the couch under the blankets, side by side. It was going well. Stiles was distracted, Lydia felt happy, except for the growing frustration she was feeling towards Stiles, who kept making her pause the movie every half hour so he could pee. See, one of the downsides to living off liquids meant needing to pee all of the time, which was rather inconvenient when you were trying to watch a movie.

One movie ended and another was put on. Lydia had made her way through almost half of one of the bowls of popcorn, leaving it to sit between them while she took a break from snacking. Without really thinking about it, Stiles dipped his hand into the bowl and threw a few pieces of popcorn into his mouth. He realised what he was doing, but tried not to overthink it. It was three freaking pieces of popcorn for crying out loud, he was sure he could handle it. And if worse came to worse he could always tell her that he needed to pee again.

 It was getting exhausting, this not being able to eat thing. It had been happening since Allison’s wake and was becoming a pain in the ass. The only solid food he’d managed to keep down in the last week was a handful of his dad’s fries last night. He couldn’t even handle soup, although he thought that might have been more to do with the fact that his dad had given him tomato soup, which looked too much like the blood he was seeing, feeling and smelling in his dreams every night.

Stiles’ dad came home from work just as the credits of the second movie started to roll. He walked in, flicking the lights on as he was confused by the darkness, and wandered through the house. He found the pair of them sat on the living room floor surrounded by bowls of popcorn and bags of candy.

“Hey kids,” he said with mild confusion, looking down at the two of them.

Lydia said hello to the Sherriff and then excused herself to the bathroom, giving Stiles and his dad some time to talk. She’d noticed that Stiles had been absentmindedly eating the popcorn during that last movie, and so far it had stayed down, which was a good thing. It meant that hopefully he was starting to get better. That his body was finally adjusting back to how it had been before that thing had taken it over. As she washed her hands, she started thinking about Allison. The last person she’d had a movie marathon with was Allison, the last person’s house she slept over at was Allison’s. The reminder that she would never be able to do that again brought hot, stinging tears to her eyes, but she took a deep breath and squashed them down.

The Sherriff made dinner for himself quietly in the kitchen, declaring that after this next movie the two of them were to put the living room furniture back and head upstairs, which they did. Stiles put the duvet back on his bed and Lydia set her bag down in the corner with the bowls of food, noticing how much cleaner the room was compared to the last time she was here. There was no dirty laundry on the floor, no plates of food rotting away on the desk, and she could tell that he’d changed his sheets before she came over. It smelled better, pleasant even, which gave Lydia a hopeful feeling.

They took turns awkwardly leaving the room while the other got ready for bed. Lydia stood in front of the bathroom mirror wiping her makeup off as Stiles got changed in the bedroom, and then they swapped over. Stiles lingered in the hallway while Lydia changed into her pyjamas, being careful not to think about the fact Lydia Martin was spending the night at his house too much. She almost took his breath away when he walked back in the room. Her hair had been released from its bun and bounced over her shoulders in waves, her makeup free face had a slight rosy blush to it, and she smiled at him when he walked back in which made the dimple in her cheek visible. It was a wonder he didn’t melt right there. Self hatred kicked him in the stomach, reminding him that he was lucky she even wanted to speak to him right now, and that his attraction to her should be the absolute last thing he was thinking about.

The fourth movie was played through Stiles’ laptop, and the two of them sat against the headboard with it placed between them, munching on popcorn. Lydia threw popcorn at Stiles when he asked her to pause the movie during a part that she wanted to watch so he could go and pee. Four movies turned into five as the night went on. Lydia flipped over so she was lying on her stomach after Stiles’ constant fidgeting started getting on her nerves, which caused him to complain because it meant moving the laptop further down the bed. Lying so close to the screen started to make Lydia’s eyes burn. At about two am, they put on their sixth movie. Lydia was already struggling to keep her eyes open and fell asleep halfway through it, Stiles eventually dropping into unconsciousness not long after.


	3. Chapter 3

A sudden nudge against her side was what woke Lydia up. She blinked rapidly, adjusting to the room’s near total darkness from where she lay on her stomach, hair spilling across her face. The laptop was no longer whirring, meaning that it had gone on standby due to inactivity. The room was completely silent, but then she heard a whimper.

 “Stiles,” she whispered, shifting herself so that she was sitting upright looking at him. He was moving in his sleep, his body twitching and his hands grasping at the sheets. Realising that he was probably having a nightmare, she crawled over to him, placing her hand on his arm.

“C’mon wake up,” she murmured, moving to cup his cheek, which felt sticky with sweat. She sighed, trying to think of something else to do that might get him to wake. She tapped his arm lightly, whispering again. His eyes shot open, and Lydia inched away as he flew upright with a mangled cry, panting and gasping and staring down at his trembling hands.

“Are you okay?” asked Lydia, her voice so tight that it sounded like she might cry. Stiles could barely register what she was saying, too dazed and terrified to do much more than hyperventilate. He remembered it all so vividly. Lydia was dead. He’d killed her, choked the life out of her with his bare hands and then cut her open. His hands had been soaked in her blood from where they’d been buried inside her chest, surrounded by hot tissue and organs. His stomach churned.

“I’m gonna-” he started to say, but clamped his mouth shut when his stomach twisted again, the sickly sweet scent of warm blood still lingering in his nostrils.

“Okay,” Lydia whispered as he sprung off the bed, stumbling a little as he started towards the door. “Do you want me to come with you?”

“No,” he answered, his voice little more than a weak expulsion of breath. “I’ll be fine.” She wished that were true.

Lydia let out a deep sigh, shuffling under the covers as she waited for him to return from the bathroom. She wondered what he’d been dreaming about, replaying how terrified he’d sounded over and over again in her head. Whatever it was, it must have been horrible. A shiver went up her spine just thinking about it, and a deep, sympathetic sadness settled in her chest. Her heart ached for him, having to re-live the torture that the Nogitsune inflicted on him every night. She lay down in the bed, resting her head against the pillow. Eventually Stiles padded back into the room, falling onto the bed with a pained sigh.

“Come here,” Lydia whispered. He let out a shaky breath and slowly turned onto his side so they were face to face, wincing with the effort. Lydia inched closer to him. His face was screwed up in pain and the smell of Listerine on his breath was so strong that it made her eyes water.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked gently, resting her hand on his arm.

Stiles shook his head, trying to concentrate on the warmth of her touch rather than the various uncomfortable sensations exploding inside of him. His body felt so weak. Everything from the stomach down felt like lead, his throat burned, and his chest felt tight with fear and anxiety, causing each breath to send ice cold pain to his pounding heart and trembling muscles.

“You’re shaking,” Lydia gasped, moving to touch his face, which felt clammy in her hand. He blinked at her, letting his eyes stay closed for a second longer than usual so he could focus on the feeling of her fingers stroking his cheek.

“Still think you deserve this?” she said softly, her voice tinged with sadness as she tore her hand away from his face. “Because trust me, you don’t.” He said nothing.

“Is every night like this?” she asked, trailing her fingers along his bicep. He sighed at the comforting brush of her skin against his.

“Pretty much,” Stiles answered flatly. Lydia cupped his cheek again, tilting his chin up so she knew he was looking at her.

“Then you’ve suffered enough,” she murmured, trying to ignore the pain of her heart splintering with sorrow.

“They’re dead because of me, there is no enough,” he breathed, closing his eyes and leaning into the warmth of Lydia’s palm pressed against his cheek.

Lydia’s throat constricted. His words felt like a hammer against her glass cage of a chest, sending shards flying and digging into every piece of her they could, like invisible bits of shrapnel. A desperate determination flooded through her. She was not going to let him keep doing this, she couldn’t.

“Yes there is,” she whispered harshly, blinking away a rogue tear that was dangerously close to falling. “Because that wasn’t you. You and the Nogitsune weren’t even in the same body when that happened. So the sooner you start believing that this wasn’t your fault then the sooner this will start to go away, and I know you want that.”

Stiles blinked as he considered her words, struggling to comprehend the pain and determination and softness in her voice. He could see how much it was breaking her to see him like this, could feel how much she cared, even at a time when he wondered why the hell she didn’t hate him. It hurt him to see her like that, with eyes brimming with tears and a hauntingly pained look gracing her features. It caused an ache in his chest so strong that it felt like he couldn’t breathe, which only made him hate himself more. He desperately wanted to take her pain away, but he didn’t think he could. Guilt and grief had such a tight grip around him that he couldn’t see a way to break himself free.

“And what about the people who died when we were?” Stiles responded, his voice a low, unsteady whisper.

“You weren’t in control,” Lydia answered, brushing her thumb across his cheek. “It’s still not your fault.” He let out a deep, shaky sigh. She wondered if he was about to cry.

Lydia’s soft caring caused guilt to rip through him. No matter what she said, his body had still been used to take life, and that was something he didn’t think he could forgive himself for. Some days he wanted to, when the nightmares and the weakness and the constant paranoia that the Nogitsune wasn’t really gone felt like too much to cope with, but then he just felt like a coward. He told himself that he should deal with the pain, because it was what he deserved. That he didn’t deserve their sympathy or their help. So seeing Lydia so upset and desperate to help him just made everything feel worse.

 “Who else knows about the nightmares?” asked Lydia after a long moment of silence, pulling her hand away from his cheek and placing it back on his arm, her palm sweaty. She hoped that he wasn’t dealing with this on his own, but given how rejecting he’d been of help a part of her feared that he was, that she just now had been the first person to witness just how bad things were.

“Dad, Scott,” Stiles listed, thinking of the watered down versions of the truth he’d given them. “But they don’t know just how bad they are.” Lydia let out a quiet sigh.

“You should let them help you,” she said tentatively. The pain of watching him frequently refuse help was starting to exhaust her.

“There’s nothing they can do,” he replied dismissively, the concern reflected in her wide eyes feeling like a punch to the gut. “Unless Scott’s wolf abilities have suddenly extended to preventing horrifically disturbing nightmares.”

“I meant talk to them,” she replied, sounding like she was almost laughing. He could see her smiling at him in the dark. A sad smile, making his chest ache so much that he almost didn’t want to look at her, but he didn’t think he’d ever be capable of not looking at Lydia Martin. “Like you’re supposed to do with your loved ones when you’re hurting.”

“They need me to be okay,” replied Stiles, and he genuinely believed it. He’d always felt like he needed to be strong for them, stronger than he was, even before all of this shit happened. “I’ve caused them enough worry.”

“But you’re not okay,” Lydia sighed, feeling crushing pain rippling through her chest. In this moment, he reminded her of Allison. His stubborn determination to not seem weak in front of those he cared most about, to make it look like he was in control, even when he wasn’t. “They need to support you, and you need to let them.”

“But what if they can’t help me? What if no one can?” he said, shakily voicing his deepest fears. Lydia could hear how much the idea terrified him, even through the quietest whisper. “What if this has fucked me up for good?”

“It doesn’t have to if you don’t let it,” she murmured, squeezing his arm. Stiles closed his eyes. Her voice sounded so soft, so hopeful. It made his stomach sink.

It would be so easy to believe her. So easy just to let them in and accept their help, and he wanted to. There was a part of him inside that was so desperate to accept their help and work towards an end to this constant pain and misery and suffering. But that part was trapped in a cage, screaming through the bars while the thick, dark shadows guarded it, determined to stop anything that tried to break that part of him free. His mind was at war with itself, and the darker half was winning.

“You are one of the strongest people I know, you can come back from this,” said Lydia reassuringly, gently rubbing his arm. She knew that he had it in him to pull through this. He was much more resilient then he knew, she just needed to help him see it. But right now that felt like trying to guide him through a maze blindfolded. “But you can’t do it on your own.”

She was right, Stiles knew she was right, but there were two major problems. He didn’t trust himself, and didn’t feel like he ever would again. Everything felt so conflicting and overwhelming and he didn’t know which of his thoughts to be listening to. Every time he made the decision to try and get better something reminded him of why he didn’t deserve to, and every time he decided to give in to the guilt and the darkness, someone begged him not to. It felt selfish to listen to them when everything inside him screamed that he didn’t deserve their help, but looking at the pain in their eyes when they saw him made him feel even worse. He couldn’t see which option made him the least awful.

And even if he did decide to accept their help, he didn’t know where to start. How could he hand them instructions on guiding him back from the darkness when he couldn’t even read them himself. He couldn’t see what he needed to do. It had complete control over him. Even with Scott, whom he trusted more than anyone, he’d been struggling to let him in. He didn’t want Scott to have to see that side of him, the one he didn’t think he could escape. Scott was trusting and hopeful and good, everything that he wasn’t right now, and Stiles felt like he’d break him. He’d do anything to keep that hope alive in Scott, to protect it, and to protect him. And if that meant hiding how much he was suffering then so be it. He cared far more about Scott than he did about himself right now anyway.

“You know what’s funny?” Stiles said with a harsh laugh, watching Lydia’s eyes widen attentively as she listened to him. “How Scott’s this big badass alpha, and I still feel like I need to protect him from everything.” Lydia wasn’t sure where his comment had come from, but she hoped that it meant he’d been thinking about how much he needed their help.

“Well maybe it’s about time that you let him protect you,” she replied, smiling as premature relief started dripping into her veins. “What do you think you’re protecting him from, anyway?”

He didn’t say anything, but he closed his eyes and lowered his head, giving Lydia all the answer she needed.

“He doesn’t need protecting from you,” she told him, feeling the urge to pull him close and hold him against her. She wondered what he must possibly be thinking to feel that his best friend needed protecting from him.

“Wasn’t too long ago that you all did,” Stiles replied, pain and regret pouring from his words.

“Well that’s over now,” Lydia reassured him, watching his eyes fall closed just for a second. “And now we need you to be okay, so let us help you get there.”

Stiles started to think about selfishness, whether he was being selfish in accepting their help or by rejecting it. They were all so desperate to see him return to normal again that he wondered if accepting their help wasn’t the selfish act he thought it to be. But what about all those people who were dead because of him? He thought. Didn’t he deserve to suffer, was that not the right thing. Maybe a part of him would always be suffering even if he did accept their help. Maybe letting them help him, and helping himself was the right thing to do, because the people he loved wanted to see him okay. Maybe doing it for them and not for himself would help him gain back the humanity he was certain he’d lost.

“Okay,” said Stiles, his voice barely a whisper. Lydia blinked as she replayed the moment again in her mind, making sure she hadn’t misheard him. Warmth and relief burst in her chest, so strong that it almost made her lose her breath. She was smiling, gently squeezing his arm so that he knew how happy she was to hear him say that.

“Do you want to try and go back to sleep?” she asked.

“Not really,” he replied, shuddering a little at the thought of being plunged back into another horrific nightmare.

“Maybe you should try,” Lydia suggested softly, suddenly having an idea. “I’ll put the movie back on, maybe listening to it will help.” She sat up and grabbed the laptop from where it sat near her feet, starting the movie again. After gently tapping Stiles’ legs so he would move them, she placed the laptop on the floor and glanced at the alarm clock on the nightstand. 04:57.

They both relaxed against the pillows, pulling the covers over themselves so they were comfortable, letting the soft sounds of the movie playing fill their ears. Lydia fell asleep immediately, the exhaustion and heartache finally pulling her under. Stiles took longer. He listened to the movie with his eyes open, initially determined not to fall asleep, but as his body started to relax his eyelids began to flutter closed, pulling him into unconsciousness.


	4. Chapter 4

Stiles woke with a start, eyes darting frantically around the room as he twisted under the sheets, sucking in air like he’d been drowning and just reached the water’s surface. Once he registered that he was in his room, in his bed, and not trapped in a locker with one bandage swathed hand closed over his mouth and another wrapped around his throat he tried to relax, sitting himself up and taking slow, deep breaths. He focused his attention on the familiarities of the room around him and not the acrid stench of burnt flesh that lingered in his mouth and nose, willing his stomach not to expel its contents again.

 He slowly started counting his fingers, whispering as he checked each finger off, proving all ten were there and there were no additional ones. By now his heartbeat was starting to slow, making the pressure in his chest ease a little. A cold sheen of sweat stuck his shirt to his body uncomfortably, and his stomach was still churning painfully, but he kept breathing through it, searching the floor for a bottle of something to drink. A half empty bottle of Sprite came to his rescue.

After sipping some of the Sprite, pushing his attention towards the pleasant lemon taste that coated his tongue and away from any reminder of the dream he’d just been having, Stiles breathed in deeply. He noticed the movie was still playing quietly so he turned it off, falling back against the pillow afterwards. He sighed, feeling half of the tension leave his body as he closed his eyes and relaxed back into the warmth of his bed. He didn’t feel quite so exhausted this time, but that intense terror still prickled over his skin. Anxiety still sat heavily in his chest, pressing down on him. He opened his eyes, unable to ignore the uncomfortable feeling creeping up his spine, when his eyes fell on Lydia.

She was still sleeping. It was a miracle he hadn’t woken her. She was lying on her side, face half buried into the pillow, strawberry blonde hair fanning out around her. She looked so peaceful, her eyes closed so softly that you could almost miss the puffy circles under them. She almost looked like she was smiling. So relaxed, so content. God, Stiles thought, she was almost so beautiful that it hurt to look at her.

Immediately he began chastising himself, reminding himself how creepy it was for him to be watching her while she slept. He rolled onto his back so his eyes were on the ceiling, forcing himself not to glance in her direction. A part of him was still trying to process the fact that Lydia Martin, the girl he’d had a crush on since the third grade, spent last night sharing a bed with him. But that was a small part of him. A part that felt completely insignificant. That was the eight year old boy who knew so little of the world, of all the horrors it would bring.

Stiles laughed at his eight year old self, his thirteen year old self, hell, even himself at the start of sophomore year, who thought they knew what love felt like. They had no idea. They couldn’t have even imagined the intensity once you actually got to know that person, got to see the brilliant, brave, selfless, sarcastic, vulnerable human being they really were. Their friendship had not only strengthened Stiles’ feelings for Lydia, it had made them evolve. But the possession had changed things. It made everything painful. Lydia had been kidnapped by the Nogitsune because of him, felt her best friend die. He felt like he didn’t even deserve her friendship right now, let alone all the support she’d been giving him. And then when his feelings came into the mix. Well, it just made everything a million times messier.

Stiles turned onto his other side so his back was to her. That way he’d have to move in order to look at her. He glanced at the alarm clock. He could tell that the sun was up by the dull light shining through the shutters into his room, but he didn’t know just how late in the morning it was. The alarm clock read 06:07. He’d been asleep for about an hour since the first nightmare, which explains why the movie was still playing when he woke up. He let a harsh laugh out through his nose. This morning was the most sleep he’d had since the possession. He must have got about three hours, mentally scoffing at the irony that he used to consider that a slightly worse than average night’s sleep. Now it was freaking miracle.

Stiles lay there for a while staring at his desk on the other side of the room, got up to go to the bathroom, got back into bed again, still making sure he wasn’t looking at Lydia. He had no idea how much time had passed when he heard the muffled sniffling from the other side of the bed.

“Lydia,” he said tentatively, rolling onto his other side so he could see her. She was awake, clutching the pillow and softly crying. Their eyes met and Stiles felt like he’d been shot in the chest.

“I…I’m,” Lydia started to say, tears flowing from her wide watery eyes, but broke back into sobs. Before Stiles could even think he extended his arm out, imploring her to come and rest her head on his shoulder. She did.

“Shh, it’s okay. Come here,” he murmured as she settled against him, wrapping his arm around her as she grabbed a fist full of his t shirt. A few minutes of silence passed where she cried into his shoulder and he rubbed her arm. His shirt was growing warm where her tears soaked into the fabric, and he desperately fought the urge to gently kiss her hair. Pain weighed heavily in his chest, pulsing with the desire to take her pain away and twisting with the knowledge that he was partially to blame for it.

“You want to talk about it?” Stiles asked tentatively, giving Lydia’s arm a gentle squeeze. She took a deep breath, trying to control the way her body shook with the sobs. She would talk to him, or else she feared she would do nothing but lie here in his bed and cry all day. Once her breath was a little less shaky she wiped her eyes. The damp patch of shirt under her face felt warm and uncomfortable against her skin.

“There’s this second every morning,” she began, taking a deep breath as she prepared to spill the feelings that were ripping her to shreds. “When I wake up and think everything is okay, and then I remember.” She barely closed her mouth before she was bawling into his shoulder again.

“Hey, it’ll get easier,” he soothed, feeling like all the grief and hurt was radiating from her body into his. He sighed. “I know it doesn’t feel like it right now, but it will. Trust me, I know.”

Lydia thought of Stiles’ mother, remembering that he’d lost her when he was fairly young. She remembered how she’d felt when her grandmother had died, and while it was shocking and painful it felt nothing like this. She’d felt the life leave her best friend, the person who taught her the true meaning of friendship and trust and how to be there for others. The person who brought down every wall Lydia had carefully constructed around her heart and let her be the person she wanted to be was gone. Lydia had felt her leave and had been absolutely powerless to stop it.

Lydia didn’t know how much longer they lay there together in silence, Stiles making soothing noises in her ear as she cried until she exhausted herself. Eventually, when there were no tears left, Lydia sat herself up. She stared at the huge wet patch on Stiles’ shirt, wiping her flushed damp cheeks.

“You should grab a shower,” Lydia suggested, her voice still shaky. “I’ll get dressed, and then maybe we can think about breakfast.” There was pain in his eyes as they met hers.

“Sounds good,” he replied quietly, shuffling himself out of bed. Lydia didn’t move as Stiles grabbed clothes from his dresser to take into the bathroom, just started at her hands clasped in front of her. She felt a little bit relieved, but the air around them still felt heavy, like a thunder cloud was forming but neither of them could see it. She started to get changed after he left, quickly pulling on her clothes and brushing her hair. She pulled it into a ponytail, so it was out of her face. She was cleaning up the remnants of their sleepover snacks when Stiles walked back in the room.

“You want to go and grab breakfast now?” he asked as their eyes met across the room. Once again he was so captivated by her beauty that he forgot what he was doing. Elements of that vulnerable girl crying into his shoulder were still clinging to her, giving her cheeks a muted glow and her smile a soft sadness that tugged painfully at his chest. Getting to see her so raw and completely unfiltered. It made her feel more beautiful to him than her looks ever could.

“Sure,” she answered quietly, collecting up the bowls and half empty bags of candy from the floor. He took them from her, insisting that he carried them downstairs while she took her things. Once they were in the kitchen he went straight for the cupboards.

“I don’t think we have much,” Stiles told Lydia as he opened a cupboard and looked inside. “But I’ll check.” Lydia leant against the table as he searched the refrigerator.

“Bacon and eggs okay?” he asked a minute later, pulling a carton of eggs off a shelf.

“Yeah,” Lydia replied, a look of confusion crossing her features as she watched him pull a pack of bacon from the fridge.

“What?” Stiles asked with suspicion when he noticed Lydia looking at him strangely.

“You’re cooking me breakfast?” she said, her tone indicating that she couldn’t quite believe it.

“Well you’re not going to eat it raw, are you,” he replied, giving her his ‘no shit’ look. She shook her head.

“No, it’s just-” she started to say, but struggled to find the right words to explain what she’d meant.

“You didn’t think I could cook,” he finished for her. Her cheeks began to flush slightly.

“Well…” Lydia responded awkwardly, her speech trailing out before she could think of the next word to say.

“Of course I can cook,” Stiles stated, emerging from the cupboard with a frying pan in hand. “My dad works ridiculously long hours, how else do you think I feed myself?”

“Takeout,” answered Lydia. Stiles opened his mouth to argue but then paused, progressing through about six different facial expressions as he searched his brain for evidence that she wasn’t right. He came up with nothing.

“Only like fifty percent of the time,” Stiles countered, about a minute too late for this argument to be effective, waving his arm around and pointing the frying pan at Lydia. She’d been preparing for the following eye roll before he even opened his mouth, an incredulous look remaining on her face. “Alright sixty. But that extra ten percent is Scott’s fault.”

“Sure,” she replied sarcastically, laughing when he huffed in frustration.

As Stiles set about cooking the bacon and eggs, the room grew quiet, and it was beginning to make him feel rather uncomfortable. He couldn’t stop thinking about the state Lydia saw him in earlier this morning, accompanied by incredibly unwelcome reminders that he’d murdered her in his dream. It made him cringe when he placed the slimy raw bacon into the griddle pan. He started cracking the eggs, which proved to be no less uncomfortable than handling the bacon and made him press his lips into a thin line, the smell of the cooking bacon making everything worse.

Anxiety crept up his spine. He kept thinking about what Lydia must be thinking about seeing him like that, weak and sweaty and gross. He was lucky he hadn’t puked in front of her. He tried shaking the thoughts away. Usually this wouldn’t bother him so much, but it was Lydia, the girl he was ridiculously in love with. And the last thing you want someone who you’ve been crushing on since forever to see is them to see you like that. That was hide-it-from-them-until-you-were-together-and-they-loved-you-anyway-despite-seeing-you-all-gross territory. He started listing random facts about eggs that he’d found as a result of boredom fuelled three am Google searches in order to displace some of the jittery discomfort that hummed through his body. Lydia eventually wandered over and stood at his side, which just made everything more uncomfortable. Once Stiles took a pause from the parade of unnecessary facts tumbling from his mouth Lydia placed a hand on his arm.

“You feel awkward about earlier don’t you?” she asked softly. An ice cold sensation prickled over his skin as he realised that she knew.

“Nope, not awkward, no awkwardness here,” he replied hastily, making sure to keep his eyes on the eggs. When he did make a quick glance up at her, he saw her shooting him a disbelieving look. Damn, why did she always have to see right through him.“What could possibly have given you that impression?”

“The fact you’ve been rambling about eggs to me for the past five minutes,” she responded. His eyes met hers, and she was surprised to notice something reserved in them. He almost looked embarrassed.

“Lydia, I’m-” he started to say, but she cut him off.

“If you’re about to apologize, don’t,” she said firmly, looking right at him. “Not for that.” He quickly withdrew his gaze from her, turning back towards the eggs in the pan. Lydia placed her hand on top of his where it rested against the counter, getting his attention.

“Look, I get it. I get not wanting to let people see you vulnerable,” she began reassuring him, making sure her voice was gentle. He blinked as he looked at her, his eyes widening just a little. “But I said I’d help you through this, and that means being here through the messy stuff. So whether I’m talking you through a nightmare or rubbing your back while you throw up, I’m still going to be there for you. You don’t need to feel awkward about any of it.”

“Thanks,” he replied quietly, hoping she didn’t notice his voice nearly breaking as his heart skipped in his chest. It was killing him, Lydia being this supportive and caring. Part of him, the part that was letting his feelings for her take control was flipping goddamn cartwheels, but the dark, guilt consumed part of him reminded him how selfish it was to be thinking of his feelings right now, how she wouldn’t even be coming to him if she wasn’t grieving for her best friend and boyfriend, who were dead because of him. Both of those parts had a grip on each side of his heart and were tearing it down the middle.

“And besides,” Lydia added, pulling her hand away. “I spent half an hour crying into your t shirt this morning. I think we’re even.” She smiled at him as she went off to sit down, and it felt like the world’s most welcome arrow to the chest.

The bacon was done pretty quickly, so he dished it onto a plate while he waited for the eggs to finish. They only needed a little bit longer. As he put the egg carton and pack of bacon back in the fridge he grabbed the carton of apple juice from inside the fridge door, sliding it along the counter towards the oven and then taking a large sip from it as he checked on the eggs. A disgruntled noise came from Lydia behind him.

“Really?” she said disbelievingly as he turned around to see why she’d made the noise.

“What?” he asked, unsure what her problem was.

“Drinking from the carton,” she explained, raising her eyebrows at him.

“What?” he repeated, turning on his heel to face her, juice sloshing around inside the carton in his hand. “It’s not like I tilted the carton up too high and sent apple juice up my nose and all over the floor.”

“That was unusually specific,” Lydia responded, narrowing her eyes in confusion.

“Well it kinda happened once,” he explained, causing her to shoot him an unimpressed look. “Okay twice.” Lydia closed her eyes in disbelief. Of course it had.

She sighed. “Why am I letting you handle my food?”

 


	5. Chapter 5

Lydia was looking down at her nails when Stiles placed the plate of bacon and eggs in front of her. The paint was chipped on every single one and she was in desperate need of a manicure. She sighed looking at them. She would have never let them get this bad before, but right now the state of her fingernails was the absolute last thing on her mind. A part of her longed for that time when life was much simpler and the worst thing that could happen was her nails looking less than immaculate and not the fact she’d have to wake up every morning in a world where her best friend was gone. She snapped out of her head and grabbed her knife and fork, noticing that Stiles was looking at her from the other side of the table over his meager breakfast. A small yoghurt drink and a glass of apple juice were sat in front of him, a stark contrast to the full plate facing her. Lydia almost found the disparity amusing.

Stiles observed Lydia as she sat opposite him, delicately cutting her eggs and bacon into small pieces. She’d looked lost when he’d brought her the plate of food, her mind obviously wandering. He knew that she’d been thinking about Allison. She couldn’t smile away that vulnerable and sorrowful look in her eyes no matter how hard she tried. The familiar ache of guilt and regret shot through him, making his chest feel tight as he glanced across the table. Stiles then realised that he hadn’t offered Lydia a drink, quickly remedying the situation by asking if she wanted some juice. She responded by stating that after watching him drink it from the carton she was willing to go without. He still got up and poured her a glass of water, which she quietly thanked him for.

Lydia looked up from her plate when the noisy sloshing sound of Stiles shaking the yoghurt drink filled the air around them. She’d been enjoying the comfortable silence until the sound invaded her ears, watching as he peeled off the drink’s lid, raised it in a ‘cheers’, and then drank the entire thing in three gulps. She almost expected him to throw the empty container behind him like people did after chugging cans of beer, but he didn’t. He set it down on the table and started spinning it, watching it twirl in circles on its side while she cut up her bacon.

“So what’s the plan for today?” asked Lydia after the sound of the spinning yogurt container was starting to grate on her nerves.

“I’m gonna go to Scott’s,” Stiles answered, taking a sip of apple juice. “Spend the weekend there.”

“Good,” Lydia replied, smiling. “When are you going? I’ll drive you.”

“Thanks but I’ll just take the-” Stiles started to respond, but Lydia cut him off.

“No you won’t,” she ordered, looking him squarely in the eye with stern determination. “Not until you can stand up without almost passing out, don’t think I haven’t noticed.” A guilty look crossed his face. “I’m taking you, no arguments.”

They sat in near silence while Lydia finished her food. The only sound being Stiles’ continued spinning of the empty yoghurt container on the table, which was starting to irritate Lydia so much that when she wasn’t chewing food her lips were pressed into a tight line as she tried not to glare at him over the table. It was like he was incapable of sitting in a space where there was no noise, whereas that kind of space was exactly what she wanted while eating her breakfast, not listening to the monotonous rattling of a yogurt container spinning around on a tabletop. She almost sighed with relief when he threw the container in the trash.

Stiles collected her plate and then dumped it with his empty glass in the small pile of dirty dishes on the kitchen counter before disappearing upstairs to pack a bag for Scott’s. He wasn’t long getting his stuff together, and didn’t have any sudden spells of dizziness, so that was a plus. He definitely felt different this morning. The discomfort and awkwardness from before had faded and made him notice that he actually felt less exhausted than usual. Clearly the three hours sleep had helped, despite not feeling like it at the time. By the time he was ready Lydia was waiting for him by the door, her bright pink bag a startling contrast to the jeans and dark floral blouse she was wearing. The bag almost made Stiles’ eyes hurt.

“You ready?” asked Lydia, her ponytail swinging behind her as she moved out of the way to let Stiles near the front door.

“Yeah,” he replied, the weight of his own overnight bag hard against his back as he pulled his keys out of his pocket and opened the front door.

They got into Lydia’s car, and the drive was unnervingly quiet until Lydia put some music on, but even then no one spoke. Lydia couldn’t tell if this was a good thing or not. Stiles had definitely seemed more like himself this morning, which Lydia certainly was happy about. However he seemed withdrawn, and usually by now the car would be filled with his protests over the music or him describing one of his ridiculous theories or rambling about one thing or another. She remembered all of the car journeys they’d shared where she was wondering if he was ever going to shut up, mentally laughing at the irony of how much she wanted to hear his voice now. When someone who was always talking stopped you certainly noticed the silence. Things didn’t stay quiet for long however, as about six minutes into the journey Stiles realised that they were going the wrong way.

“This isn’t the way to Scott’s house,” he stated, a slightly panicked tone to his voice as he turned to Lydia before glancing out of the window again, wondering where the hell she was going. His immediate thought was that this was one of her weird banshee things and that they were on the way to locate a corpse instead of dropping him off at Scott’s house. He was already preparing himself for the sight of it.

“I know,” Lydia responded calmly, checking the rear view mirror before making a left turn. “I’m taking you back to mine first.” Relief and confusion flooded Stiles’ body.

“Why?” he asked, shooting her a perplexed look.

“I’ll tell you when we’re there,” she answered, mentally preparing herself for the onslaught of protests and questions she knew she was about to receive.

“Why can’t you just tell me now?” he asked, a budding frustration over why she had to be difficult and couldn’t just tell him starting to form in his chest. Stiles toyed with the strap of his bag, fighting the urge to bounce his leg.

“Because,” Lydia responded slowly, drawing out the end of the word. Stiles started squinting at her from the passenger seat. Was she serious? He thought as he rolled his eyes in exasperation, his lips disappearing into a thin line.

“Really,” he exclaimed loudly, leaning forward in his seat. “You can’t just tell me now.” He was gesturing with his hands so quickly that Lydia thought he was going to accidentally whack his hand against the dashboard. The thought amused her as she rolled her eyes at him.

“Can’t you wait two minutes to find out,” she replied with equal irritation, her voice raising a pitch. Exhaling slowly through her nose, Lydia reminded herself never to miss Stiles talking incessantly in the car ever again. All of the grief they’d been dealing with and all of the crap they’d been through in the past few weeks had made Lydia forget that Stiles often had a tendency to be the most frustrating person on the planet.

“No,” he exclaimed in response. “I’m an incredibly impatient human being.” Lydia rolled her eyes again, so hard that she worried they might get stuck.

“That’s an understatement,” she muttered lowly, exhaling her exasperation out through her nose as she turned another corner.

After that the car went silent again, and a strange feeling settled over Lydia as soon as the heated sensations of annoyance had simmered away. It was a comfortable feeling, pleasant. Lydia quickly realised that arguing with Stiles just now was the most normal she’d felt in weeks, and that was why that weirdly comfortable sensation had burst to life inside of her. That feeling was normality.

As Lydia took the turn that lead onto her street, she quickly glanced over at Stiles. He was messing around with the strap of his bag, twisting it around his fingers while his leg bounced up and down. She smiled, realising that that argument was also the most he’d seemed like himself in a long time. Lydia knew that it meant he was going to be okay, eventually.

They pulled up on the driveway and then moved towards the house. Stiles watched the leaves of the ivy that crawled up the front wall of the large building sway gently in the breeze as Lydia dug her keys out from her bag and unlocked the front door. Inside the house was cold and quiet, the lights off in every room they passed through. Lydia told Stiles that she expected her mother to currently be out, explaining the prominent silence that filled the house. He wandered behind her as they walked through a maze of rooms, still slightly annoyed that she hadn’t told him why he was there with her. Eventually she disappeared into a small room off of the kitchen, leaving him standing there next to the kitchen island staring at his feet. Gee Lydia, he thought sarcastically, thanks for bringing me here so you could rifle through a closet and still not tell me what the hell we’re doing. He sighed. Considering how hopelessly in love with her he was, he sure did find her frustrating at times.

“Prada,” Lydia called once she emerged from the little room, a small stretch of what appeared to be rope dangling from her hand. “Come here Prada.” Stiles realised what was happening. His eyebrows raised in disbelief as he turned towards Lydia.

“Seriously,” he exclaimed, the little bit of frustration that lingered from the car increasing in intensity. She stared at the ‘are you kidding me?’ expression written on his face. “You’re leaving me here to go walk your dog.”

“No idiot,” Lydia fired back, shaking her head as she closed her eyes. “You’re coming with me.”

“Why?” Stiles responded. The subtle tapping of Lydia’s small dog crossing the laminated floor rang through the room.

“Because you haven’t been outside in a week,” exclaimed Lydia, the high pitched tone startling Prada, who stopped at her feet. “You look like you could be knocked down by a particularly strong breeze.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know that that breeze wouldn’t take me down without a fight,” Stiles argued, pointing dramatically as he attempted to maintain whatever sense of dignity he had left, considering she was right. He was weak and pale and really did need to get out of the house, not that he would have if she hadn’t brought him here, he would’ve just gone and hidden indoors at someone else’s. When he thought about it, it was actually a pretty smart way of getting him to spend time outside. He watched Lydia roll her eyes at his theatrics before bending down to connect Prada to the leash.

“Just hold the leash while I go and find my dog walking shoes,” she said after Prada was connected, thrusting it into his hand as she moved past him with an exasperated look on her face. She went back into the laundry room, letting out a slow sigh.

Stiles started down at the small dog attached to the rope in his hands, startling backwards when it barked at him. It didn’t take long before Lydia came back, and Stiles’ attention was immediately drawn to the dark blue and white Nike’s on her feet.

“What?” Lydia asked impatiently once she noticed him staring, narrowing her eyes at him.

“Those are your dog walking shoes?” he replied, not quite sure what he expected, but knowing Lydia he certainly wasn’t expecting a pair of sneakers.

“No,” answered Lydia slowly, raising her eyebrows. “My real dog walking shoes are a pair diamond encrusted Jimmy Choo platform boots, but they’re being cleaned at the moment.”

Stiles knew that Lydia was being exaggerative but he didn’t know enough about the multitude of different styles of women’s shoes to be able to pinpoint whether she was being completely sarcastic. Plus, given some of the things Lydia had worn on her feet to school over the years, he wouldn’t put it past her. Whatever face he must have been pulling had revealed his thought process to Lydia, as she shot him a disbelieving look.

 “Seriously you believed me?” she exclaimed, like the thought of it was completely ridiculous.

“What the hell do you expect me to know about women’s shoes?” he blurted, the words flowing from his mouth before he could think about whether or not that was the response he wanted to give.

“Enough to know I was kidding,” Lydia responded, baffled by the utter ridiculousness of this conversation. How? She thought. How could he possibly have thought she was being serious? She was completely done and they hadn’t even been outside yet. Only Stiles had the ability to make her feel like this.

“Alright,” he said hastily. “Can we just walk your damn dog now?” Lydia tried not roll her eyes too obviously as she went and retrieved the leash from him.

They went out of the front door and down into the street. After the incident with Peter, Lydia didn’t really like walking Prada in the woods behind her house. They gave her the creeps. Her street was quiet, filled with large houses set back atop long drives, so nobody passed them as they began to walk the length of the street. Prada was a small dog and didn’t need very long walks, so they weren’t going to be out for long, she just wanted them to be out. Once they passed the house three doors down from hers, Lydia turned to Stiles.

“How does that nice fresh air feel?” she asked, enjoying the feeling of the slightly cool breeze on her face.

“Cold,” he responded, his hands shoved in the pockets of his hoodie. Lydia was unable to stop her eyes rolling.

“It’s not that bad,” she argued. Considering the fact that December was slowly approaching, the weather was actually rather nice. There was a noticeably chillier touch to the wind but the sun was still shining.

“My house is warmer,” Stiles replied, causing Lydia to shake her head.

“Which is exactly why you’re out here with me,” said Lydia.

Truthfully, Stiles didn’t mind it that much at all. Sure, a part of him wanted to be sat inside all day like he had been for the past two weeks but something about the fresh air made him feel a little bit more awake. Not to mention how comfortably simple it was to just be walking down the street with Lydia, her dog trailing along in front of them. Nobody was crying or talking about how much pain they were in. He didn’t feel guilty for existing. It crossed his mind that if anyone were to see them right now they would think they were together. The thought spread warmth through his chest.

After walking up and down the street, Lydia let Prada off the leash to run around in her front yard while she leant against the wall. Stiles was about to continue up towards the house, but she grabbed his arm, leading him next to her. He looked at her for an explanation but was met with a sad smile. He knew that she wanted to talk about Allison. He leant against the wall next to her, their sides just touching.

“Do you know what hurts the most?” Lydia said without looking at him. Her voice was low and heavy. “Thinking about all of the things we were going to do together.”

Stiles didn’t say anything in response. He had no words for her. Lydia leant forwards so she could look at his face, which was focused intently on the floor. He blinked, realising she was trying to get his attention, before meeting her gaze. He felt the tears in her eyes that hadn’t yet fallen impale him.

“She was thinking about going back to France in the spring,” Lydia told him, trying to smile. “She was going to take me with her.”

“Yeah,” whispered Stiles, the sound of her voice breaking replaying in his mind. He heard Lydia let out a slow and shaky breath, knowing that she was trying not to cry. Without looking at her, he wrapped his arm around her shoulder, pulling her body against his as she sobbed into his hoodie.

“It hurts,” choked Lydia, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. “Seeing her everywhere and then remembering she’s dead.” Stiles sighed, remembering that very familiar feeling.

“That will get easier,” he told Lydia, remembering the time after his mother died. “One of the hardest parts is expecting them to be there and realising that they’re not, having it sink in again every time.” Lydia took another slow breath, resting her head against his shoulder. “But it gets better with time, you get used to it.”

“I don’t want to get used to it,” she sobbed. “I just want her back.”

“I know, Lyds,” he murmured, pressing her against him. “I know.”

After Lydia calmed down she let Prada back into the house and the two of them got in her car so she could drive Stiles to Scott’s. She parked in front of Scott’s house, reminding him to call her tomorrow once he’d got back home so she could see how he was feeling. She hoped that the small amounts of progress he’d made would continue over the course of the weekend. After he said goodbye, thanking her for coming over and actually getting him to spend time outside, he went into the house. Lydia drove away with a sense of positivity emerging over the grief. If every day from here onwards felt as normal as this morning had so far, then she knew things were going to eventually be okay.


	6. Chapter 6

Stiles pulled the Jeep’s key from the ignition, quickly surveying the busy parking lot in front of him before retrieving his phone from his pocket, opening the text from Scott. He’d messaged him earlier, asking him to text him once he’d arrived at school. According to the message on the screen in front of him, Scott had arrived four minutes ago. He texted Scott back, telling him that he’d see him in a minute. When he walked over to the bay reserved for bikes where Scott parked his motorcycle, Scott greeted him with a surprised expression.

“Decided to come back, then,” said Scott, patting him firmly on the shoulder as the two of them began their walk towards the building’s main doors.

“Yeah,” he replied, taking in the loud surge of students surrounding them. “I’d been thinking about it all weekend.”

“Good,” Scott responded, initially smiling, but then his face shifted subtly. Given all of the years he and Scott had known each other, Stiles recognised the almost undetectable look of wariness on his face immediately. His brow furrowed.

“What’s wrong?” he asked quickly, his words tinged with anxiety. “I know that look.”

 “Are you sure you’re ready to come back to school?” asked Scott, concern softening his voice. He felt an uncomfortable sensation flicker in his chest.

“Yeah,” he responded. The thought had been weighing on his mind ever since Lydia’s visit last week. He’d certainly been considering coming back, but last week it had been out of the question as he was still too physically weak. Over the weekend, though, he’d made more progress than he had in the two weeks that had passed since the Nogitsune was exorcised, managing to consistently keep down food and actually get a small amount of sleep. He had more energy now, and while he wasn’t entirely convinced that he was absolutely ready to come back, it was a better option than sitting at home all day wallowing in his own misery. If this weekend had made him realise anything, it was that.

“I mean, you don’t think it’s too soon?” Scott continued, still radiating concern. The sensation in Stiles’ chest started to slowly morph into frustration. He was unsure enough about this as it was, the last thing he needed was his best friend doubting him too.

“No, I don’t,” Stiles replied, his tone harsh. Scott blinked at him. He closed his eyes, regret piercing him as he realised that he’d let out more of his frustration than intended. He took a slow breath, consciously trying not to sound so irritated. “I need to get out of the house or I’m going to keep driving myself crazy.”

“But it was only yesterday that I was talking you through a panic attack,” Scott countered, causing Stiles to shudder at the memory. It was three thirty am and he’d woken up screaming from one of the most terrifying dreams he’d had since they’d gotten rid of the Nogitsune. Wrestling to get the blanket off him, he’d fallen out of bed and ended up on the floor feeling like he couldn’t breathe, and anything that touched him just made the panic exploding inside his chest feel worse. It wasn’t something he ever wished to experience again.

“Yeah, well I’m fine now,” he said, his voice defensive. The sight of the entrance to the school getting closer as they walked towards it made a small burst of anxiety bubble up in his chest. He tried to squash it down. “And if things get bad I’ll just go home.”

“Sorry dude,” said Scott, stopping him just shy of the entrance by placing a hand on his arm. “I just want to make sure you’re okay.” He nodded.

“Yeah, I know buddy,” Stiles replied, smiling a little as he placed a hand on Scott’s shoulder. “But I’m fine.” They looked at each other. Stiles felt comfort flow through him from the lack of worry on Scott’s face.

“Ok,” said Scott, giving him a reassuring smile. They held onto each other’s shoulders for a second longer before turning to head inside. The realisation that they were about to walk over the spot where the Nogitsune’s embodiment crumbled into ash hit Stiles like a blow to the chest. He took a deep breath, trying to focus his thoughts on the familiar sights and sounds and faces that awaited him on the other side of the door, far away from that memory.

Just as they were about to step through the blue double doors, Scott turned to Stiles. “Did you eat breakfast?”

“Yeah,” he answered as they walked over the threshold. “A yoghurt drink and a couple bites of toast.”

“Good,” Scott replied with a smile. It was the last thing Stiles heard before the unruly sounds of the hall engulfed them.

Lydia gazed absentmindedly at the throngs of people making their way down the school’s main hallway as Kira shoved things from her locker into her bag. Kira had been a very positive influence on the grieving pack, and Lydia found that she was coming to like her a lot. She’d been there for Scott immediately after Allison’s death, putting whatever budding romance had been blossoming between them to the side to support him through his grief, and had offered to give Lydia the same amount of support, should she want it. Lydia just wanted her friendship, and while nothing would ever replace the friendship that she’d had with Allison, Kira knew just how much to be there for her and just how much space to give, which Lydia greatly appreciated.

Just as Kira shut her locker door, muttering something to herself that Lydia couldn’t quiet hear over the buzz of the surrounding students, Lydia noticed Scott and Stiles making their way down the hall towards them. Gentle nerves fluttered in Lydia’s stomach as she thought about whether she believed Stiles was ready to come back to school. She was certainly surprised to see him. Of course she wanted him to be ready, she wanted him to start moving forward and recovering as soon as possible, but after this weekend and the night she spent at his house she didn’t want him having any setbacks. She desperately hoped that this would not be a setback. Scott and Stiles stopped just in front of them, greeting them with smiles.

“Hey guys,” Stiles said casually, nodding his head slightly. Lydia glanced up at his face, smiling, but checking for signs that everything was less than okay. He seemed fine. Even the dark circles under his eyes had started to fade.

“You’re back,” Kira blurted, sounding almost as surprised as Lydia felt. She shot him a wide smile to cover up any potential awkwardness from why she went with that instead of hello.

“Yeah,” he replied, quickly glancing down at the floor before shoving his hands into his front pockets. “Figured I’d missed enough school.”

“Are you feeling better?” Kira asked softly.

“Better enough,” he replied, finishing with a thin smile.

“That’s great,” beamed Kira. As Lydia had been keeping an eye on Stiles, she noticed his attention fall to her. He inched closer as Scott started talking to Kira.

“You okay?” he said quietly, looking her directly in the eye. A warm sense of comfort hummed in her chest.

“Yeah,” she replied, nodding. A moment passed between them where nothing was said but their eyes remained fixed on each other. A silent acknowledgement that everything was okay. Lydia blinked, remembering that they had places to be. “Should we head to homeroom?”

“Sure,” Stiles agreed, turning to Scott and clapping him on the shoulder. “See you guys later.”

“See you buddy,” Scott responded, facing back towards Kira before turning and grabbing Stiles by the arm, pulling him back towards him. “And remember, if you start feeling-”

“Yes, I know,” he cut Scott off, shooting him a reassuring smile. “Don’t worry.” The pair shared a nod of acknowledgement before he joined Lydia and they began their walk to class.

“So,” said Lydia slowly, dragging the word as she tried to label her feelings. “You’re back.”

“Yup,” Stiles replied.

“You didn’t think to mention this over the phone yesterday,” Lydia continued, realising that she was slightly irritated by the fact he hadn’t mentioned this last night when they were talking on the phone. Surely if this were a good thing then he would have mentioned it to her.

“I wanted to keep it a surprise,” Stiles explained. Lydia didn’t look too impressed.

A sense of uneasiness spread like dispersing butterflies in Lydia’s stomach. Stiles seemed fine, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t as right as he made it out to be. And after all, he was always the one telling her to trust her instincts. She swallowed. She hadn’t intended to do this, knowing it would irritate him, but she needed this uneasiness to subside. It would just be sitting there all day if she didn’t. She sighed.

“Are you sure about this?” asked Lydia, making sure that she turned to look Stiles in the eye. It was his turn to look unimpressed.

“Oh my god, not you too,” he groaned, tilting his head back as he rolled his eyes. “You and Scott should start a club.”

“We’re only asking because we care,” Lydia countered firmly, shooting him a concerned look.

“I know,” he sighed, wondering how to articulate his frustration without sounding like a dick. “I just...” he paused. “I just want a little bit of trust on this.”

“It’s not that we don’t trust you,” said Lydia gently, giving him a sympathetic look. “We just don’t want you taking on more than you can handle right now.”

“Well I’ve got to do something,” Stiles replied, the defensive tone to his voice alarming Lydia. He sounded unsure and desperate, which immediately raised Lydia’s concerns, but he was right. They should trust him to make his own decisions about this, and if things didn’t go well, then all they could do was support him. “Sitting at home all day was just making me worse.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, a picture forming in her mind of the state he’d been in when she’d gone to see him after school last Wednesday. The doors to their respective homeroom classes emerged in their peripheral vision, and they separated and went through them with no more discussion on his return to school.

The day started off well. After homeroom Stiles met Lydia and they went to English, which went fine. He found himself struggling to focus a little, but he’d had problems focusing for as long has he could remember, so he knew it wasn’t an issue. Second period he almost fell asleep, feeling his thoughts turn fuzzy and his muscles start to relax as he sat in his seat. It took a lot of effort not to doze off, and by the end of class he had a headache from the effort of keeping himself awake. Clearly being at school was using up more energy than he thought it would, and energy was not something he had much of right now. As the day went on the headache got worse, and so did the desire to sleep during each class, until Mr Yukimura’s history class.

As soon as Scott told Stiles that his class was next, a ball of anxiety dropped like a stone into his stomach. He’d been dreading facing the Yukimura’s again, given their involvement in what happened. The thought of it made his stomach turn. Shivers crept up his spine as they walked into the classroom, his hands clenching and unclenching in his pockets. He remembered the day that thing lead him here to find out where Noshiko’s tails were. The image of him torturing his history teacher for information was screaming in the forefront of his mind.

Mr Yukimura was perched on the edge of his desk, smiling at students as they walked through the door. The minute Stiles made eye contact with him, cold dread settled in his stomach. Uneasiness gnawed at his insides and crawled along his skin as he thought of Mr Yukimura remembering the incident too. He was leaning right where it happened.

“Ah, Mr Stilinski,” said Mr Yukimura cheerfully. “It’s good to see you back.” The pounding in his head grew stronger as he thought about how the lasting image Mr Yukimura had of him was when he’d been completely taken over by the Nogitsune. “I trust you are feeling better.”

“Well I’m here, so…” he answered, a harsh defensiveness to his voice that made Scott shoot him an alarmed look. He didn’t know where it had come from, probably from the jittering sensation eating his insides, reminding him that the image of his possessed state would always be there, lingering in people’s memories. Mr Yukimura smiled awkwardly as Scott placed a hand on his back and guided him to their seats.

Things only got worse during class. Stiles spent the whole time with his face in the textbook, unable to meet Mr Yukimura’s eyes. He was staring so intently that the white of the pages was starting to hurt his eyes, his entire head throbbing in protest at any attempt to concentrate. Every time Mr Yukimura looked down the rows of students, a deep, squirming discomfort settled in Stiles’ stomach, mixing with hunger and nausea. He couldn’t stand the idea of Mr Yukimura’s eyes on him, the image of him possessed forever burned into his memory. He wondered if that was the first thing Mr Yukimura thought of when he looked at him, if that was all he could think of. The idea made his skin crawl.

As soon as the bell signalling the end of class started to ring, Stiles’ heart almost stopped with relief. He grabbed his backpack off the floor, preparing to make a quick escape, but as soon as he stood up his head spun violently. He steadied himself against a desk, causing Scott to bump into him.

“Dude,” Scott exclaimed, gripping his arm. “You okay?”

“Is the ground moving, Scott?” he answered, slightly distressed. He leaned into Scott’s stable body as the room continued to undulate around him. “It feels like its moving.”

“No, but you are,” Scott replied, inching him towards the nearest seat. “Right back into a chair. Sit down.” Scott placed him in the seat, his backpack slipping off his shoulder and onto the floor.

“You want some water?” asked Scott, bending to pick up the backpack.

“Yeah,” he groaned, closing his eyes as the room’s spinning started slowing to a halt. Kira’s voice drew his attention as he opened his eyes.

“What’s going on?” she asked, now standing in front of Scott.

“He’s just a little dizzy,” Scott explained, passing Stiles the bottle of water. He quickly unscrewed the cap, eager for the steady cold sensation of the water trickling down his throat. Everything was starting to feel normal again, aside from the headache that was still raging. He didn’t look forward as he heard footsteps approaching.

“Is everything okay over here?” asked Mr Yukimura, concern lacing his voice.

“We’re fine dad,” Kira quickly reassured him.

“He’s been having a few issues,” Scott started to explain, his voice tentative as he inched around how to describe the situation without mentioning the possession. “Since, you know.”

“What kind of issues?” asked Mr Yukimura. The tone of his voice caused a vicious defensiveness to erupt inside Stiles. He swallowed his last mouthful of water, feeling it gurgle in his stomach as he set the bottle down.

“Human ones, you know,” he answered firmly, screwing the lid back on the bottle while looking Mr Yukimura square in the face. “Headaches, vomiting, anxiety,” He raised a finger with each listing, titling his head slightly to one side. “Vividly disturbing nightmares.”

“Hmm,” Mr Yukimura pondered, narrowing his eyes in thought. “It doesn’t sound unusual for you to be experiencing physical and psychological after effects, but your situation is incredibly unique, none of us really knew what to expect.”

“Yeah, and it’s not like there are plenty of other survivors to ask,” added Stiles, practically spitting the words out like they disgusted him.

“True,” agreed Mr Yukimura, tilting his head in consideration. “I mean, we didn’t even expect you to survive the possession.”

“Dad!” exclaimed Kira, outraged.

“What?” he replied. “Your friend’s case is miraculous.”

Stiles’ lips were pressed into a thin line as he fought to contain how much discussing this was making him uncomfortable. He stared at the wall, trying to focus on something other than his pounding headache and the nausea growing as each second passed.

“But I’m sure you’ll be feeling better soon,” Mr Yukimura said calmly, turning away from his mortified daughter to look at Stiles. “Just give it some time.”

He nodded in acknowledgement at Mr Yukimura before turning to Scott and Kira. “Okay, can we go to lunch now? I feel fine, and Lydia is probably getting worried.”

 The three agreed to leave and headed to the cafeteria. Scott and Kira went and joined the lunch queue while Stiles went to find Lydia, who was sat at a table by herself starting nervously at her phone.

“There you are,” she exclaimed, her voice high. “I was beginning to worry.” He sat down opposite her, digging around in his backpack for the ham and cheese sandwich he’d brought for lunch.

“Yeah, sorry about that,” he said. “My fault.”

Lydia’s eyes widened as she looked at him, checking him over. His hair was more tousled than usual, sticking up in five different directions like he’d been running his hands through it. His eyes were bloodshot and his skin was much paler than it had been this morning. It made the puffy skin under his eyes more obvious.

“Don’t worry, everything’s fine now,” Stiles assured Lydia once he saw her expression change, but she felt uneasiness settle in her chest as the words reached her ears.

“If you say so,” she replied, making sure he knew that she didn’t believe him. They sat in awkward silence occasionally making eye contact until Scott and Kira arrived at the table. Kira sat down next to Lydia, greeting her with a smile, and Scott took the seat next to Stiles.

“I got you some fries,” said Scott, pushing a plate of French fries over to his side of the table.

“Oh,” responded Stiles with pleasant surprise. He’d only expected to eat the sandwich he made, which looked like it had lost a boxing match in his bag. “Thanks man.”

Stiles started slowly making his way through the plate of fries, being careful not to eat too much too quickly. The anxiety and nausea that had bubbled up during Mr Yukimura’s class hadn’t quite dissipated, but he hoped eating something would make it better. After making his way through half of the plate of fries, he’d started to feel full so he took a break. The noise of the cafeteria was doing nothing to help his headache, and he was having trouble getting his nerves to settle, unable to shake the images of burning and death that discussing the possession with Mr Yukimura had conjured.

He moved onto his sandwich, taking tiny bites as his body digested the fries. Gas started to creep up his throat, urging him to burp it out. While chewing the third bite he’d taken of the sandwich, his stomach gurgled and twisted in pain. He fought back the urge to spit out the mouthful of soggy bread. Shuddering as he swallowed it down, he reached for his near empty bottle of water, a thin layer of sweat forming on the back of his neck as heat spread in his stomach and chest. His stomach turned more violently as he tried to take another bite, causing him to put the sandwich down and forcefully swallow what he’d bitten off. Seriously? Right now? Stiles thought to himself. He knew what was about to happen.

“Uh, Scott,” he managed to mumble before saliva filled his mouth. He swallowed it.

“Yeah buddy?” responded Scott, turning around in his seat. Stiles let out a strained hum in response, a tight grimace etched onto his face. Scott clicked.

“You gonna?” he asked slowly, cringing a little.

“Yup,” Stiles replied quickly, already pushing back his chair.

“Okay, come on,” Scott said, rising out of his seat and placing an arm on his shoulder.

They stumbled out of the cafeteria and towards the boys' bathroom, just managing to make it into a cubicle in time. After his stomach was empty Stiles collapsed against the cubicle wall, Scott looking down at him from where he stood in the doorway. He groaned.

“You got a mint?” he asked between shaky breaths, desperate to get rid of the disgusting taste in his mouth. Scott’s brow furrowed in consideration.

“Um, I have a stick of gum,” he answered, digging his hand into his pocket. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” he answered as Scott produced a stick of gum and handed it to him. “Thanks man.”

He slipped the piece of gum into his mouth, enjoying the minty flavour as it exploded on his tongue. Scott was still looking down at him, eyebrows raised in concern. He extended his hand to help Stiles off the floor.

“You are so going home,” Scott said sternly as Stiles put his clammy hand in his, pulling him to his feet.

“I know,” Stiles grumbled like a disciplined child, wincing as his body adjusted to being upright again.

Lydia leaned against the wall outside of the bathroom, chewing on her lip as she waited for Stiles and Scott to walk through the door. She glanced down at her grey suede ankle boots as she tried to squash the swirling of emotions in her chest. She’d been worried about this happening all day, hoping that it wouldn’t cause a return of the defeatist attitude she’d spent the last few days trying to coax out of Stiles. She needed to tell him that having a setback was okay. Fiddling with the hem of her navy blue pencil skirt, Lydia let out an impatient sigh. A second later the door to the boys' bathroom swung open. Stiles came out first, dragging his body into the hall as Scott followed.

“Scott,” he said, closing his eyes and tipping his head slightly back. “If you say I told you so right now, I swear to god.” Scott shot his best friend a look, one that let Lydia know that he was certainly thinking it.

“You would,” he replied, sounding more like a concerned parent than a smug friend. Stiles folded his arms across his chest.

“Yes, but I have never claimed to be a decent human being,” he countered, tilting his head to the side. “You should know better.”

“Exactly,” Scott responded, definitely sounding a little smug this time. “I don’t need to say it.”

“Then wipe that look off your face,” Stiles scoffed in response. Lydia rolled her eyes, deciding to ask them what was going to happen now rather than continuing to listen to their dramatics.

“What’s going on?” she asked firmly.

“I’m taking him home,” Scott answered.

“I’ll come with you,” she replied immediately, causing both of them to shoot her a confused look. She sighed, rolling her eyes in exasperation that she had to explain this to them.

“Well you’re not going to take him home on your bike,” she exclaimed. “And he definitely isn’t driving home.” she jabbed her thumb at Stiles. “So I’ll take him and you drive the Jeep back.”

They both agreed it was a solid plan. Scott took a head start as he needed the keys for the Jeep, which also meant that he had his house key. Lydia would follow behind. Once they reached her car, Stiles and Lydia got in silently. She hadn’t said anything to him yet, she’d been waiting for them to be alone. Stiles broke the silence first, throwing himself in the passenger seat as Lydia put on her seatbelt.

“You’re not going to say anything?” he asked as he buckled his seatbelt, his tone indicating that he was expecting an ‘I told you so’ talk from her too. Lydia sighed quietly. She hadn’t wanted to be right.

“You tried,” she answered softly, glancing over at him. “That’s what’s important.”

“Thanks,” he replied quietly, obviously not expecting her response. Lydia slid the keys into the ignition, preparing to press her foot down and pull out of the parking lot.

“Just let me know if you need me to pull over, okay,” she said, turning the air con on just a little.

“Yeah,” Stiles responded, leaning back in his seat. Lydia pulled out of the parking lot and started the drive to his house, looking over at him every time she could afford to take her eyes off the road to check if he was okay. Once they arrived at Stiles’ house, Scott unlocked the door and they went in, grabbing him some aspirin and water as he collapsed on the couch. Once Stiles assured them he’d be okay on his own they left, Lydia driving them back to school. A sad ache settled in her chest as she thought of Stiles, hoping that he was alright. She’d seen how bad he’d been, and desperately hoped that it would all be over soon, so that he could be okay again and she had one less person to worry about.


	7. Chapter 7

Lydia was getting pretty tired of staring at her bedroom ceiling in the dark. It was all she seemed to do recently. Whenever night fell there she was, lying in bed, chained there by the thoughts and emotions weighing her down. She couldn’t even see anything, but that didn’t stop her staring up into the black abyss. It looked how she felt, an empty expanse spreading and coating everything in darkness. The sound of her phone shrieking from the nightstand startled her, sending the heavy thoughts scattering as she leaned over and grabbed her phone.

“Hey Stiles,” she said, pushing her hair out of her face. “What’s up?”

“Do you feel like letting me come pick you up?” he asked, his tone relaxed. The immediate question surprised Lydia, and so did the fact that he wanted to go out considering they’d had to take him home from school at lunch.

“Feeling better I see,” she replied, keeping the suspicion in her voice subtle so hopefully he wouldn’t notice. He noticed.

“Yeah,” Stiles responded, running his hand through his hair as he tried to decipher the reason Lydia sounded so wary. Surely she’d be happy to hear that he was feeling better, well, if he could call this better. “I took a nap on the couch after you guys left. Headache went away.”

“Mhm,” Lydia mumbled, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

“But now I’m wide awake,” Stiles continued, staring up at his bedroom ceiling, one hand resting behind his head. “And I feel like going out, so I was wondering if you wanted to come with me.”

“What, like far out?” asked Lydia.

“No, just driving around,” answered Stiles. He didn’t care where they went, he just wanted to get out of the house. Something about the silence set his nerves on edge. It felt so empty, even though he knew his dad was sleeping down the hall. He’d been trying to rid himself of the tension for the past two hours. He had the light on, had videos streaming through his laptop, and yet somehow that walls of his room still felt like they were about to close in on him. “To be honest I just want to get out of my room.”

“You could always sleep downstairs,” Lydia suggested. Stiles let out a harsh laugh.

“I already told you I’m not going to sleep,” he responded, making sure not to sound like he resented the fact. He was happy that he’d filled his quota of hours slept that afternoon, even if it was somewhat frustrating that he was wide awake in the middle of the night. It was nothing new to him. He’d spent many nights up until the early hours, but that wasn’t the problem. Everything was so much quieter at night, and usually that wasn’t an issue, was actually preferable, but now it just made the anxiety too loud. “And I don’t think sitting in front of the tv would feel any different.”

Lydia could tell from his voice that there was more to this than just the urge for a midnight drive. He sounded like he was holding something back, and it was starting to bug her. She let silence pass down the line between them as she grew ever more lost in her thoughts. It was Stiles’ voice that brought her out again.

“So are you in?” he asked. Lydia could already feel the desire to see him and talk face to face spreading through her chest.

“Yeah sure,” she replied, smiling thinly. “Why not?”

“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said Stiles quickly.

“Ok,” Lydia responded, and then the line went dead. She let out a heavy sigh as she realised this meant getting out of bed and getting changed, which she was feeling increasingly unwilling to do as each second passed. It made her notice exactly how much time she’d spent just lying there. It was now 1:17 in the morning, and she’d showered at eight and then just climbed into bed and not moved. Her hair was still damp. With one determined push, she climbed out of bed, walking over to her light switch and bathing the room in light as she found some clothes. She chose a loose, thick sweater and leggings, pulling her damp hair into a bun.

She took one last look around her bedroom before turning off the light, considering how inappropriate the brightness of the walls felt compared to the feelings of pain and grief she was beginning to associate with the room. The room felt so empty, like something was missing but she couldn’t figure out what. She shook away that thought and quietly made her way downstairs, realising that Stiles would be outside soon. She waited in the front yard until the Jeep rolled up.

“Good morning,” said Stiles as Lydia walked towards the Jeep through the open driver’s side window, his breath appearing in front of him in a thick white cloud. “Jump in.”

Lydia greeted him and then walked around to the passenger’s side door, climbing inside. She settled in the rigid seat, thankful to be out of the freezing air. Stiles rolled his window up. The engine groaned to life as they juddered off Lydia’s street.    

The first few minutes of the journey were quiet. Lydia didn’t know where they were going, or if Stiles even had a plan, but she was just content to sit and watch the peaceful silence of Beacon Hills through the window. The streets were empty, the roads practically empty too. It seemed such a distance away from the chaos she knew lurked around every corner in this town. The thought almost made her anxious. She wanted to preserve this peaceful image, not have it ruined with violence. She wondered if the violence has permanently tainted the night for her, if the peace she can see out of the window will ever feel like more than a façade again.

They turned down a quiet street, where the glowing lamps were the only sign that they weren’t in a ghost town. It made Lydia think of that night when Stiles went sleepwalking and ended up in the middle of the woods, how they were driving around all over the town trying to find him, how everything seemed so quiet when everything inside Lydia had felt so loud, so filled with worry. She wondered if nights were ruined for him too, if this drive was making him re-live awful memories. She then thought of earlier, and whether his setback had knocked his progress. She hoped it hadn’t.

“So,” Lydia said slowly, breaking the comfortable silence that had settled between them. “Will you be coming to school again tomorrow?”

“Don’t you mean later today,” Stiles replied. Lydia rolled her eyes, shooting him a look.

“That is going to get very annoying very quickly, Stilinski,” she responded, watching his face as he considered her words. “But yes, that’s what I meant.”

“Yeah I’m going to come in,” he said. Lydia couldn’t tell if she felt happy about this or not.

“Ok,” she replied, keeping her tone neutral.

“Well I figured,” he began, glancing quickly at Lydia before taking a left turn. “Just because today didn’t go so great, doesn’t mean I should just stop coming in.” After sleeping, and recovering from a horrific nightmare about classrooms, Stiles had realised that his little setback in history and the events that followed aside, he was definitely right about going back to school. It had simply been a case of his anxiety getting the better of him, which he was determined to not let happen again.

  He realised that he needed the noise. Now that he was no longer wallowing in his own misery and self pity, getting through periods of silence where there was nothing to block out those thoughts was the hardest part of each day. Having people around him kept him busy, focused. But when they were gone, there were no distractions from the darkness creeping at the back of his mind. He tried to squash it down, but anxiety just popped up instead, making each silent minute fraught with tension and anticipation of the next awful thought or image his brain had for him. He needed to get himself back out there to keep it together.

“You mean yesterday?” she replied, in a tone that was obviously indicating her mirroring of his time corrections that she said were annoying. He realised she was right.

“Alright,” he responded, quickly monitoring her face for smugness. “I see your point.” She shot him a satisfied smile.

“But I know I can’t stay at home,” he continued, feeling tension build and then release in his chest as he articulated this desperate need to avoid being alone. “Especially if I’m alone all day.” He paused, uncomfortable energy pulsing though him, making sitting still difficult. “And besides, I don’t have history tomorrow so Mr Yukimura won’t be there to freak me out.”

The words surprised Lydia. She felt it ripple through her chest like a rapidly spreading rash. Her stomach sank as she thought of something as small as seeing a teacher triggering that strong a reaction. She knew that there was more to it, of course. She had been informed of Kira’s mother’s personal involvement with the Nogitsune, how all of the events of the past few months had woven together. She couldn’t think to imagine all of the things that she didn’t know, the things he wouldn’t talk about.

“That was what bothered you?” she asked softly, giving him a tender look. He looked back, for a second, and was so struck by the care and concern in her wide doe eyes that the car almost drifted onto the wrong side of the road. He felt like a lightening bolt had singled in on his heart.

“Yeah,” he responded breathily, trying not to let his composure slip. That was the last thing he needed. The swirling mix of emotions in his chest settled and then sank, slowly shaping into something more solemn as he remembered what they were talking about. “I just couldn’t shake the thought that he was picturing that thing when he looked at me.”

Stiles pulled the Jeep over, parking on the curb. Lydia was still looking at him, imploring him to talk to her, and he couldn’t do that and drive, not after he nearly started driving on the wrong side of the road just looking at her. He wished things didn’t feel so different with Lydia right now. Before it was so easy, they just clicked. Talking to her felt like the most natural thing in the world, and now it felt like receiving slow electric shocks but being addicted to the pain. It was love and guilt and hopelessness all thrown into one messy pot, and when he was with her it felt like that feeling had completely taken him over, that he was powerless against it.

“And then I got really dizzy when I tried to leave and we all ended up talking about it,” Stiles continued explaining the details of the classroom situation to Lydia, shuddering at the memory of Mr Yukimura discussing his unanticipated survival. “Which let me tell you, was not something I want to experience again. Ever.” He started moving his hands as he talked, noticing Lydia’s eyes following them.

“How bad was it?” she asked. She knew that he was no longer talking about the dizziness. They must have been talking about the possession, judging by the way Stiles’ voice twisted when he said they were talking about ‘it’.

“Bad, bad,” He exclaimed, his eyes widening the way they did when he was trying to emphasise the importance of something, or the danger. “Like, this is awful, please let the ground swallow me, bad.”

“I’m sure things will get better,” Lydia reassured him, suppressing the laugh she was unable to stop over his melodramatics.

“Yeah,” he responded in a tone that Lydia couldn’t decide whether it was sarcastic or not. “I just need to not almost pass out in his class and give him a reason to talk to me, then everything will be great.”

“Yeah,” said Lydia, knowing for certain now that he was being sarcastic. Stiles let out a heavy sigh.

“But it won’t, will it,” he said flatly, resting his arm on the steering wheel and running a hand through his hair. The shift in his tone made the entire car feel cold. Lydia tentatively leant towards Stiles, watching him close his eyes. “If it’s not Mr Yukimura then it’ll be coach, or one of the deputies or the hospital staff,” Stiles continued without looking at Lydia. “There are too many reminders of all the people I’ve hurt.”

“That wasn’t you,” Lydia said softly, finding his hand where it rested on the steering wheel and covering it with hers. Her heart ached as she had to go here again, wondering if this conversation would ever be over.

The gentleness of Lydia’s touch took Stiles by surprise, but didn’t ease the waves of guilt that were crashing into him. He tried to push back against it, but the force was too strong. He knew that he couldn’t let that feeling pull him under again. He focused on the feeling of Lydia’s skin. Her hands were warm and smooth, her fingernails grazing the side of his hand as she clutched it.

“Well it sure looked a lot like me,” he responded bitterly with a harsh laugh, finally turning to face her. The look of guilt and despair and desperation reflected in Stiles’ eyes had become so familiar to Lydia over the past few weeks, but it still didn’t hurt any less to see. Lydia didn’t know if the soft noise that escaped past her lips as they involuntarily parted was a gasp or a sigh, but she knew that the cold sensation spreading through her body was a deep sympathetic sadness.

“Stiles,” she sighed, gently taking her hand off of his and placing it on his upper arm.

He tried to concentrate on the warmth of her hand as it seeped through the sleeve of his flannel shirt, but all he could think about was how much that fragile way she said his name was destroying him inside. It was too much, all of it. All of the feelings and the images he still had inside his head of the chaos and destruction that thing wanted to cause. The weight of the knowledge that people were dead because of him, and that now people he cared about were in such pain because of it.

“I saw what it saw, felt what it felt, and I liked it,” he started to say, trying to steady his voice. Lydia gave his arm a gentle squeeze, which made the knot in his throat feel bigger. “How do I forget that?”

“You don’t,” Lydia replied, her voice tight. “You live with it. But you remember that you had absolutely no control in that situation, so you are not to blame for any of it.”

She looked so desperate now. Stiles almost couldn’t stand it. It made him feel like he couldn’t breathe. For a second, he had to really think about it, just to make sure that he could. Lydia gently squeezed his arm again, and combined with the look in her eyes, it felt like hundreds of tiny knives had just landed in his chest.

Stiles had always felt everything very intensely, but right now he wished more than ever that he could turn that part of himself off. It was killing him from the inside out and nobody could see it. He nodded slowly, making sure that Lydia knew that she wasn’t going to have to beg him not to blame himself again. He still did, of course he did. He didn’t think there would ever be a day where he didn’t feel responsible for everything that happened, but it’s not controlling his life anymore, and that’s all she needs to know.

Lydia gave him a sad, gentle smile before letting go of his arm and leaning back into her seat. Stiles watched her as she let out a shaky breath, feeling a sudden urge to comfort her.

“What about you?” he asked quietly, waiting for her attention to move from her fingernails to him. “How are you doing?”

Lydia’s gaze fell on him and she shot him a thin smile, before turning back to look out of the windshield, taking a deep breath.

“I went to organise my closet this afternoon and found some of her clothes,” Lydia started, keeping her eyes trained on the streetlight in front of her because she knew that if she looked at Stiles again she’d burst into tears. “And I just broke down.”

Without moving from where her gaze was fixed, she felt him slip his hand into hers. Lydia inhaled deeply through her nose, trying to shrink the knot in her throat that got bigger every time she thought about this afternoon and Allison.

“I mean I was already worried about you, so on top of that,” she continued, risking her composure to look at Stiles. The intensity of his eyes when they met hers felt like an arrow had just pierced her heart. He was looking at her with such desperate sadness, like she was a baby bird with a broken wing he held in his hand. “Let’s just say you aren’t the only one who slept all afternoon.”

“Lyds, you don’t need to worry about me,” he said softly, placing a hand on her arm. Lydia’s gaze fell to it before she looked up and met his eyes. “I have enough people doing that already.”

“Yes I do,” she replied firmly, wishing that for once he would stop being so damn stubborn and would just let people be concerned about him. “You’re my friend. And I need my friends now more than ever.”

Stiles trailed his hand along Lydia’s arm, stopping at her wrist before taking her hand in his again. He looked at her, making sure that he had her complete attention.

“Well I’m not going anywhere,” he said tenderly, his thumb drawing circles on the back of her hand. “I’m here whenever you need me, you know that.”

Lydia nodded, unable to pull her eyes away from his. Of course she knew he’d be there for her, he always was, and she needed that. Ever since that time he told her that she looked beautiful when she cried she’d been drawn towards him whenever she was feeling upset. She felt safe being vulnerable with him.

They sat parked on that street for another hour, barely saying anything. At three am Stiles took Lydia home, reminding her that they had to be at school in a few hours. Lydia knew that she probably wasn’t going to sleep, so she lay there, staring up at her ceiling once more. But this time something felt different.


	8. Chapter 8

It was quiet in Stiles’ room. He was stretched out over his bed surrounded by schoolwork while Scott sat at the desk, his head buried in a notebook. They’d been doing this pretty much every day since Scott had gone back to school after Allison’s death. First it was Scott coming over and helping him through his catch up work and now they were both studying, since exams didn’t wait for recovery from supernatural related emotional trauma. It was the calmest part of Stiles’ day, just him and Scott, studying and talking, making sure the other is doing okay without everyone else around. He liked it, Scott’s presence made him feel more relaxed, and now that he’d told Scott everything about how he’d been feeling there was no careful monitoring of heartbeats or subtle manipulation of conversation topics to throw Scott off. Stiles felt the familiar pangs of hunger start to unfurl in his stomach and sat up to reach for the stash of snacks he now kept on his nightstand.

“Hungry?” said Scott without looking up from his notebook. Stiles turned towards him, a confused expression etched on his face as he crammed the chocolate bar in his mouth.

“What?” he asked, his voice muffled by the mouthful of food. Scott pulled his eyes up from the notes in front of him, turning to face his friend.

“That’s the third chocolate bar I’ve seen you eat since we got here,” he clarified. It was true, Stiles had eaten quiet a bit since they got back, diving straight for the fridge as soon as they walked in the door and then steadily making his way through the snack stash he brought upstairs with them. Ever since he was able to eat consistently again he found that he felt hungry all the time, and right now was certainly no exception.

“Yeah well I’m still eating kid sized meals so I’m snacking a lot,” Stiles replied, taking another bite of the chocolate bar.

“So things have definitely gotten better?” asked Scott, swivelling in the desk chair so it was now facing the direction of the bed instead of the desk. He leaned back, folding his arms across his chest.

“Yeah,” answered Stiles after swallowing the chocolate. He dropped the half eaten bar onto the bed in its wrapper, giving his full attention to Scott. “Monday’s little incident aside, I feel better than I have in weeks.”

“Good,” said Scott, smiling.

Stiles was almost shocked by how much better he felt over the course of just a few days. After two weeks of complete mental and physical exhaustion he was almost back to normal. His body had much more energy and his appetite was back. Even if he didn’t feel completely right it was still a significant improvement. He’d even managed to start sleeping consistently. The only big problem that remained was the horrifically disturbing dreams he was unable to shake.

“Now I just need these damn nightmares to stop,” said Stiles slowly, his eyes wandering away from Scott towards the ceiling as he tilted his head back in contemplation. “Then everything will be great.”

“Are you sleeping?” Scott asked, his voice a touch softer than before.

“Yeah,” Stiles replied, lifting one arm and gripping the muscle at the back of his neck. His shoulders were tense from the way he’d been positioned on his bed and he needed to straighten his back. “I’m getting about three hours a day.”

Stiles detected a concerned glimmer in Scott’s eyes, and before the look of disapproval could start to grow on Scott’s face he continued, dropping his hand from his neck and pointing his finger at Scott. “And before get all ‘that’s not good Stiles’ on me,” he began, moving his head from side to side while gesturing with his hands. “It’s not much less than the amount of sleep I got before all this shit happened, so I’m almost back on track.” Scott shot him an exasperated look before leaning back in the chair, spinning it from side to side with his feet.

“You know,” he said slowly, lacing his fingers together over his chest as he continued to move the chair with his feet. Stiles looked attentively towards Scott, his eyebrows raised in anticipation. “I’ve been trying to think of things that might help you with the nightmares.”

“Well have you got and decent suggestions,” Stiles replied, tugging at the sleeve of his shirt. “Because trust me, I could use them.”

Scott gave Stiles a sympathetic look and it made him want to tell him that he had everything under control, that it was nothing he couldn’t handle. This wasn’t the entire truth, but Stiles had learned how to come back from the nightmares quickly, and his responses to them were becoming less visceral, which was a bonus. He felt like he was handling them as well as he could be, now he just wanted them to stop happening. Some things weren’t great, like the fact he couldn’t handle sleeping in total darkness so had been going to sleep the moment Scott left his house and waking up when his dad got home from work, which due to all the overtime he was doing at the moment usually wasn’t until after eight. But he didn’t feel like Scott needed to know those things, or anyone really. He was sleeping, that was the important thing.

“Nothing yet,” said Scott disappointedly, his eyes falling briefly to the floor.

“Its okay buddy,” Stiles reassured him. He sighed, resting his elbows on his knees and his face in his hands. “I think this is one of those things I’m just going to have to ride out.”

“Or maybe you just need to feel more in control,” speculated Scott, dragging out the words. Stiles looked up from where his head was resting in his hands and turned his attention to Scott. His brow was furrowed in contemplation.

“What?” asked Stiles, narrowing his eyes with nervous curiosity.

“Well,” Scott began, screwing his face up as he obviously thought about how to word what he was about to say. “You had a dark, murderous spirit force its way into your head.”

“I know Scott,” Stiles replied sarcastically. “I remember it vividly. That’s the problem.”

“Which means that you probably feel like you’ve lost total control over yourself,” Scott continued after rolling his eyes. “Even on an unconscious level.”

Stiles blinked, considering what Scott was saying. It sounded right, and would definitely explain why he was experiencing such bad anxiety.

“You feel like the nightmares won’t stop because you don’t feel in control of yourself, even if you don’t realise that’s how you feel,” Scott continued explaining. “You’re letting your emotions control you because you feel like you can’t control them.”

“Okay, did you take a psych class in the last few weeks or something?” asked Stiles, confused as to where this sudden bout of insight had come from.

“No,” replied Scott, pausing. Something shifted in his facial features. He went from focused and animated to reflective and solemn in about half a second. Stiles watched Scott’s Adams apple bob in his throat as he swallowed.

“When you said all that stuff to me about how you were feeling I got worried,” he explained quietly, his voice radiating concern. “So I started doing some googling.”

Scott’s words hit Stiles like a punch in the stomach. He didn’t realise Scott had been that worried about him. When he sat Scott down last Saturday and told him everything he’d been feeling he was so focused on getting it all out that he didn’t stop for a minute to think about how that information would impact Scott, of all the implications that their conversation might have held. He knew Scott had been upset with him for keeping it from him, but they talked about it, they moved past it. He didn’t think Scott would still be so worried, especially when he was improving so fast.

“Dude, you don’t have to worry about me,” Stiles reassured him, his voice soft and quiet. “Not like that.”

“Good,” Scott replied, slowly smiling. They shared a look of acknowledgement before Scott continued explaining his theory. “So as I was saying, maybe you just need to feel in control of yourself again and the nightmares might start to fade.”

“Makes sense,” Stiles concluded, glancing up at the ceiling as he thought about it. “Now I just need to work out how to regain control of myself. It’s not like I can just think myself out of having nightmares.”

“Actually that might be it,” Scott countered, pinching his chin with his thumb and forefinger.

“What?” questioned Stiles, squinting sceptically at his best friend.

“It worked with me,” Scott began, leaning forwards in the chair as his voice rose a little. “When I was first bitten I felt totally out of control too, but I learned to control it, I found an anchor.”

“Yeah,” Stiles interjected. “With a lot of trials and mishaps.” His tone was disbelieving, his eyes widening as he spoke. “I distinctly remember you trying to kill me on a full moon.”

“It won’t be as complicated for you,” Scott argued, trying to subtly roll his eyes. “I mean, you’re already eating again, mostly, and I think it’s pretty obvious by now that your inability to eat was at least partly linked to your mental state.”

Now that definitely sounded correct. It made sense, everything Scott was saying. Stiles always knew just how much influence mental states could have over your physical health, but hearing that the reason he didn’t fight any of what was happening to him was because he felt like he couldn’t, that he felt like he was no longer in control of his own body, was revealing a hidden truth to his situation. He knew what was happening to him, and was now beginning to understand why, but working out how to fight it was a different thing all together, especially when all of the progress he’d made so far had come from resolutions of unconscious problems. The remaining problem required a lot more conscious attention, and Stiles wasn’t sure of exactly what attention it needed.

“So you’re saying that I just have to feel better in myself,” he said to Scott, his tone so questioning that it read like suspicion rather than uncertainty. His eyes were slightly narrowed, focused on the nuances of expression on Scott’s face.

“Well,” Scott began confidently, clasping his hands together between his knees as he continued to lean forwards in the desk chair. “You may have to actually keep telling yourself repeatedly that you’re in control of the situation rather than letting it control you, but-”

Stiles’ phone started ringing. He raised his hand to stop Scott before digging around in his pocket to retrieve the phone. Lydia’s name flashed bright on the caller id as the phone continued to vibrate in Stiles’ hand.

“Its Lydia,” He told Scott before answering the call, his chest filling with uneasiness. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Can you come over?” she asked, her voice so soft and breaking that hearing it made Stiles feel like someone had just stabbed him in the heart. He’d be honestly surprised if she wasn’t crying right now.

“Sure,” he replied gently, biting his bottom lip as the pain from hearing her voice so fragile spread through him. He thought he’d be used to hearing her upset by now. He wasn’t. “What’s wrong?”

“I just really don’t want to be alone right now,” explained Lydia, fumbling over her words as she tried not to choke on the lump in her throat. She was sat on the floor in her lounge, tears and smudged make-up running down her face like dying streams. She was thankful that her mother stayed behind at the school to work and wasn’t home. She didn’t think she could cope with her mother seeing her like this.

“Well Scott’s with me,” said Stiles, his voice soft and comforting against the pain shredding Lydia from the inside out. “Is that okay?”

“Yeah,” she replied, stifling sobs. Lydia wiped at the wet streaks lining her cheeks with her free hand, feeling her feet start to tingle uncomfortably where they were tucked beneath her.

“Okay,” Stiles said firmly. “We’re on our way over now.” After that he hung up.

“Dude, we’ve got to go to Lydia’s,” Stiles told Scott as soon as he hung up the phone, a strong sense of urgency in his voice. He rose from where he was sat on the edge of his bed, grabbing his keys off the nightstand and watching Scott get up and ready to leave, urging him to move faster through glances. They both raced outside and into Stiles’ Jeep, speeding off to Lydia’s house.

They ran up Lydia’s driveway once the Jeep was parked, knocking loudly on the door. Lydia opened it slowly, giving Stiles the time to take in the sight of her as she stood there. She was barefoot, one hand wrapped up in the flowing fabric of her dress and the other on the door. Her eyes were wide and watery, puffy and red underneath, and just a hint of the tears that had been shed still clung to her face, like a droplet of morning dew sliding down a blade of grass. The second his eyes fell on Lydia’s face, Stiles’ breath constricted in his throat.

“Hey, come here,” he said, barely choking the words out, as he stepped in through the front door and pulled Lydia into a hug, wrapping one arm around her back and cradling the back of her head with the other.

After Stiles let go, Scott also pulled Lydia in for a hug. His strong, muscular arms encased her, pressing her against him. Something about Scott being here felt different, Lydia was happy that he was here, of course she was, but there was something she couldn’t quite put her finger on that just didn’t feel the same as when it was just her and Stiles. Scott let Lydia go sooner than Stiles did, placing a steady hand on her back as the three of them exchanged glances.

“Let’s go sit down,” Scott suggested, his voice calm and steady. “And then you can tell us what’s up.”

Lydia nodded, allowing Scott to guide her through the house and over to the couch where she sat down right in the middle. Scott sat on her right and Stiles on her left. Lydia didn’t look at them as they sat down, only the thick rug splayed out across the floor.

“Allison’s Christmas present arrived in the mail today,” she said after a long moment of silence, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear as she spoke. Her voice was so flat that it sounded as if she’d cried all of the emotion out of herself.

“You’ve already bought your Christmas presents?” asked Stiles, causing both Lydia and Scott to turn towards him and shoot him incredulous looks. Stiles blinked in confusion, his eyes darting from side to side as he tried to figure out what he’d done that was making them stare at him like that. Lydia couldn’t help it, but the comment and the puzzled reaction were just so _Stiles_ that she started laughing.

“I saw it and immediately knew she’d love it,” said Lydia, shaking her head and still laughing. She paused, and any sense of animation her face just disappeared like a candle being blown out. Her gaze fell back to the rug. “And now she’s never going to see it.”

“Yeah,” said Scott, sadness tingeing his voice. “It feels weird thinking about Christmas without her.”

Lydia looked at Scott, her chin wobbling as she tried to keep her composure and not burst into tears on them. Scott wrapped his arm around her shoulder and pulled her towards him so her head was resting against his shoulder.

“We’re going to get through this,” he assured Lydia. “We’ve got each other. You know that both of us are here whenever you need us.”

“Yeah, I know,” Lydia replied quietly.

Stiles looked over at Lydia as she leant into Scott, desperately aching to hold her close and kiss her hair and tell her everything would be alright, even if he had no idea if it would be. His insides were like tiny knives, slicing with the pain from seeing her like this that never seemed to go away, and mixing with the familiar feelings of guilt that were beginning to settle inside him. He was never going to not feel guilty about Allison’s death and the pain it had caused everyone, he just wished that seeing Lydia grieving and upset didn’t make him feel so helpless.

“How about we do something to take your mind off it?” Stiles suggested, placing a comforting hand on Lydia’s arm. She sat herself upright and nodded.

“Movie?” asked Stiles.

“Yeah sure,” replied Lydia.

Scott went off in search of a movie for them to watch, and returned with a blanket and a pint of chocolate ice cream with three spoons. The three of them sat on the couch, tucked up under the blanket with the lights off, just watching the movie and forgetting about the unopened parcel sat discarded on the floor and the lingering feelings of grief that filled them all.


	9. Chapter 9

The bell shrilled as the halls of Beacon Hills High School flooded with students, pouring out of every classroom door and merging into huddled masses. The few minutes between classes were the most hectic times of the school day, when everyone had a few short minutes to grab stuff from their lockers and then make their way to wherever they needed to be next period. Lydia and Stiles dodged the hoards of students swarming past them as they walked side by side down the school’s main hall, Stiles glaring at every freshman who narrowly avoided stepping on his foot and Lydia covering her mouth with one hand, laughing.

“It’s not that funny,” Stiles told Lydia as they walked alongside each other, a mild annoyance to his voice typical of whenever someone laughed at his expense. Lydia shook her head, his defensiveness only making the whole thing even more amusing to her.

“Um, yeah it was,” she responded, dragging the words out with a satisfied drawl as she saw how riled he was getting.

“No it wasn’t,” he argued, still defensive. It was irking him just how amusing Lydia had found the whole thing, how amusing she continued to find it. What had happened was they had a free period together so they decided to spend it in the library, and after they’d been in there about forty minutes his stomach made a long, rumbling growl so loud that he would be surprised if the entire library hadn’t heard it. Lydia of course, thought it was hilarious. Stiles on the other hand, not so much.

“Trust me, it was,” Lydia replied, glancing over at him with a smirk. Stiles squinted at her and shook his head, his lips moving into a thin line.

“No it wasn’t,” he continued, shoving his hands into the pockets of his hoodie so he didn’t start waving them around and hit an unsuspecting student in the head or something. “So could you please stop laughing about it.”

“Oh get over yourself,” Lydia laughed, continuing to shake her head over Stiles’ melodramatics. “It’s not like anyone heard.”

“Oh, not many people,” Stiles replied sarcastically, his voice raising just a fraction. “Just me, you and probably half of the library. So no one, no one at all.”

“Oh my god,” Lydia exclaimed, rolling her eyes in exasperation. “You’re so ridiculous.”

Both of them noticed Scott coming down the main set of stairs in the hallway so they stopped, watching as he made his way over to them, his hands in the pockets of his denim jacket and a warm smile on his face.

“Hey guys,” said Scott, stopping a few inches in front of Stiles and Lydia. Lydia was already struggling to conceal giggles again as she realised Scott was yet to know about what happened in the library. “What’s up?”

“His stomach growled really loud in the library,” Lydia explained, jabbing her thumb at Stiles who looked less than amused that she was telling Scott about it. She watched a dimple form in Scott’s cheek as he fought to suppress a grin. “We’re on our way to his locker so he can grab something to eat before class.”

Scott eventually stopped trying not to be amused and burst into laughter. Stiles shot a sideways glance at Lydia, who in return gave him a look of feigned innocence as she tried not to join Scott in laughing.

“Dude stop laughing,” exclaimed Stiles, and almost childlike tone to his voice. “It wasn’t funny.”

“It sounds pretty funny to me,” replied Scott.

“Oh, it was,” Lydia added, delight obvious in her voice.

“Shut up,” said Stiles defensively, looking at Lydia before turning to Scott. “My stomach didn’t just growl, okay, it was like the volcanic eruption of stomach growls. And it just had to happen in the library, didn’t it, the one room in the entire school that requires total silence.”

Scott let out a quiet sigh, and Lydia wondered how he wasn’t rolling his eyes right now. She had certainly rolled them enough times that it was a wonder they hadn’t fallen out of her head.

“I guess you should probably grab something to eat then,” Scott replied, his face still animated from the hints of laughter that lingered in the dimples in his cheeks and the brightness of his eyes.

“You think?” Stiles responded sarcastically. Scott shook his head and the three of them started moving towards the lockers.

“So have you eaten anything since breakfast?” asked Scott as they walked.

“Nope,” Stiles answered, popping the ‘P’. “That’s probably why I’m so hungry now.”

“And we still have one more period until lunch,” Lydia reminded them.

“Exactly,” Stiles continued. “So it’s best I eat something now to avoid any further…” he screwed up his face as he tried to figure out how to end his sentence, biting his bottom lip as his mind raked over words. “Growling.”

After the trip to the lockers and their next class, Scott, Stiles and Lydia made their way to lunch. Kira was already waiting for them at their usual table, her lunch and a textbook taking up most of the table on her side. She greeted them all with a cheery hello as they sat down, talking to them as they ate before leaving for the library as she had some homework she’d forgotten about to catch up on. After Kira left, Scott broke the temporary silence that had settled over the table.

“You guys got any plans tonight?” asked Scott, turning to Stiles who sat next to him.

“Nope,” he replied, sounding somewhat bored. Scott looked over at Lydia, who was reading a book that she’d pulled out of her bag after they’d finished eating.

 “Lydia?” He said, causing her to look up from her book. Strands of strawberry blonde hair spilled over her shoulder as she directed her attention towards Scott.

“Me neither,” she answered, her voice quiet. The idea of having plans seemed almost surreal to her. She couldn’t imagine having fun without Allison, the only time she’d actually spent time with her friends since her death aside from school had been when she needed their support or they needed hers. Plans were the absolute last thing on her mind right now.

“Did you guys want to come stay at my place?” Scott suggested. Lydia’s eyes widened in consideration. “We could hang out, watch some movies, get takeout. Lydia you can sleep in Isaac’s old room.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Stiles responded, bringing one hand down to tap it enthusiastically on the table. “I’m in.”

A bundle of nerves spun in Lydia’s stomach. Allison wouldn’t want her to not have fun just because she wasn’t there, and if anyone was going to make her feel at ease about having fun without Allison, it was Scott and Stiles. Lydia smiled at Scott. “Me too.”

“Great,” grinned Scott, his brown eyes alight with happy anticipation. Lydia could tell he was looking forward to spending time with the both of them.

They solidified a plan. Stiles and Lydia were both going home straight after school to grab their overnight stuff and then making their way to Scott’s. At the end of the day, Stiles and Lydia got in their respective cars and went back to their houses.  Stiles arrived at Scott’s first, letting himself in with his key.

“Hey Scott,” he called as he walked into the house, glancing up the staircase and listening for any signs that Scott was upstairs. The soft footsteps to his right told him that Scott was in the living room, and he turned to find Scott standing in the archway that lead into the cosy room.

“Hey man,” said Scott from the archway. Stiles followed Scott into the living room, dumping his overnight bag on the couch. Melissa was heading into the living room from the kitchen, her hair in a ponytail and a can of something that looked like furniture polish in her hand.

“Hey Melissa,” said Stiles in a cheerful tone that he thought sounded odd coming out of his mouth, given his overall feelings lately. “How are you doing?”

“I’m doing fine, thank you,” Melissa replied warmly, smiling as she walked further into the room and stood near the two boys. “How are you?”

“Better,” Stiles answered, nodding his head slightly, his hands making their way into his pockets. Scott had told his mother about the problems Stiles had been having since the Nogitsune was exorcised in case they didn’t improve and he needed medical help, given that she was the only person in the hospital who understood the bizarre supernatural explanation.

 Melissa talked to him about it while he was staying there last weekend, after giving him a hug when she saw him and realising how much weight he’d lost. Stiles had actually found her calm, clinical approach to the issue preferable. She didn’t ask how he was in great detail, already assuming the answer. She simply advised him on what to drink in order to maximise his energy and nutrient intake and made sure he got what he needed while he was there.

“Good,” replied Melissa, placing the can of furniture polish in her hand of the coffee table. “So I don’t need to make you any of my power smoothies this time?”

“Nope,” said Stiles before pausing. “I mean, unless you want to. I would be totally okay with that. But I don’t need it for like, food or energy so…” he continued to ramble, his fingers twitching with energy in his pockets.

“That’s great,” Melissa responded, her voice soft and genuine. “You’re definitely looking a lot healthier than the last time I saw you.”

The last time Stiles was at the house he was pale and exhausted with dark circles under his eyes, wearing pants that wouldn’t stay up without a belt. The visible improvements in just six days were almost impressive.

“I’m feeling it too,” he said, shooting Melissa a smile. Out of the corner of his eye Stiles noticed Scott smiling too.

“Great,” Melissa replied, and then a gentle knocking on the front door sounded through the living room.

“That’ll be Lydia,” stated Scott, who then moved to open the door. Stiles turned around as he heard the door being unlocked, watching Lydia as she walked in. Her voice was soft as she greeted Scott in the hall, and she walked into the room with a wide smile on her face that made the dimple in her cheek visible and her eyes seem wider. For a split second, Stiles forgot there was anyone else in the room.

“Hey Stiles, Hey Melissa,” said Lydia as she placed her black leather overnight holdall on the couch next to Stiles’ bag. She moved further into the room, almost walking into Stiles, who blinked at her repeatedly before shifting awkwardly out of her way. Melissa was stood by the coffee table, a welcoming smile on her warm face.

“Hi Lydia,” she said, shoving her hands into her back pockets. “How are you?”

“I’m okay,” Lydia answered, nodding. Her movements and tone felt so rehearsed that they’d almost become routine, but Melissa asking felt different. She wasn’t as irritated by the question as she would be if anyone else had asked. She hadn’t seen Melissa since Allison’s death, and of course Melissa would want to know that she’s alright. It wasn’t the other students at school feeling they had to ask out of obligation, or her mother constantly checking up on her, Melissa understood.

“Good,” Melissa replied, nodding her head once. “I know how hard the last few weeks have been for all of you.”

“We’re getting there,” Scott added, glancing at both Stiles and Lydia.

A moment of silence passed as they all acknowledged the struggle of the past few weeks before Melissa bent down and grabbed the furniture polish from the coffee table.

“Are you kids going upstairs or staying down here?” She asked.

“We were going to watch some movies so we’re heading to my room,” Scott explained, jabbing his thumb in the direction of the stairs.

“Ok,” Melissa nodded, glancing into the kitchen before looking back at the three teenagers stood in her living room. “Well I’ve still got a lot of cleaning to do down here so you know where I’ll be if you need me.”

“What time are you leaving for work?” Scott asked.

“About eight.”

“Ok,” he acknowledged. Melissa stared to walk back into the kitchen as Stiles turned to Scott.

“You got any movie snacks?” He asked.

“I’ll have a look,” Scott replied, following his mom into the kitchen. With both Scott and Melissa in the kitchen, Stiles and Lydia glanced at each other, both smiling thinly when their eyes met. Lydia wanted to say something to him, but she didn’t know what.  She’d noticed that he seemed very fidgety since she walked in, his hands constantly moving in his pockets and his foot tapping against the carpet. She found it a little unnerving, that and the fact they would all be sleeping under one roof tonight. Stiles had told her that he was sleeping again, a little bit, but he was still asking her to meet him in the middle of the night. They’d spent every night this week wandering the empty streets of Beacon Hills either in his Jeep or on foot. Lydia had no clue if Scott knew about their little routine, or if tonight would disrupt it and make things worse.

Scott emerged from the kitchen with a few bags of tortilla chips, motioning for the others to grab their bags and follow him upstairs. Once they reached Scott’s room, Stiles and Lydia dumped their bags in the corner and Lydia began removing her shoes, sitting down on the edge of Scott’s bed as she undid the thin ankle straps and kicked off her heels.

Scott’s tv was in the corner of the room, an xbox console sat underneath it. Once they selected a movie to watch, Scott put the disc into the xbox and set everything up. Lydia got comfortable, stretching out over the middle of the bed on her stomach, as Stiles moved Scott’s laptop from where it sat on end of the bed onto the floor. He settled down in the spot where the laptop had been, already making his way through one of the bags of chips. Scott switched off the light as the movie started playing, grabbing his pillows to make himself comfortable as he sat down next to Lydia.

“Hey,” Scott whispered about halfway into the movie. “Do either of you guys want a can of soda?”

“Yeah sure,” Stiles whispered in response, looking over at Scott. Lydia also nodded. Scott got up and moved in front of them towards the door, but after he passed and their attention was solely on the tv, a large thump came from behind them. Stiles was the first one to turn around, startling so hard that the near empty bag of chips resting on his stomach fell off and landed on the floor.

“Dude,” he exclaimed, noticing Scott stumbling as he regained his balance. “What happened?”

“I,” Scott started to explain, but instead just glanced down at the laptop cable trailing across his bedroom floor. The pieces clicked together.

“You tripped over the laptop cable?” Stiles asked, starting to laugh. He shook his head, tossing it back as he laughed at his best friend’s clumsiness. “All those werewolf super senses and you still trip over the laptop cable.”

Lydia watched Stiles as he laughed at Scott. She took in the subtle creases around his eyes, the way he smiled as he laughed in such a genuine, entertained way. Even the sound of his laugh was making something inside her feel lighter. There was nothing harsh or sarcastic about it, nothing disbelieving, just pure amusement. It was the first time she’d seen him really, truly laugh since everything had happened, and that made her inexplicably happy. She soon realised that she was laughing along with him, the unexpected happiness completely contagious.

“Damn Scotty, you’re like the worlds clumsiest werewolf,” Stiles continued between laughs, sighing in an attempt to breath normally again. “I’m going to get you that on a mug for Christmas.”

“Alright guys,” Scott said with mock offence. The smile on his face told Lydia that he wasn’t bothered, and in fact was probably just as happy as Lydia was to see Stiles laughing like that again. “Laugh it up.”

“How, man?” asked Stiles, titling his head back, the remnants of laugher clinging to his voice. “How did you trip over the laptop cable?”

“I just did,” Scott replied, folding his arms over his chest. “Now do you want these sodas or not?”

“Yes,” answered Stiles, grinning at Scott who started heading out the door. Stiles shot Lydia a mischievous look before calling after Scott. “Try not to fall down the stairs.”

“Shut up,” Scott responded, leaning in back through the doorway to shake his head at Stiles before disappearing down the hallway.

Stiles shifted his body from resting on his elbows to lying on his back, a satisfied smirk plastered across his face. Lydia was still laughing, the entire moment having filled her with a light floating energy that she didn’t expect to feel so soon after Allison. That was what made the moment feel so beautiful to her, how unexpected it was. Even now, something about the way Stiles peered up at her from where he lay on his back, his face shaped by unfiltered happiness, made Lydia feel giddy. She truly felt for the first time in a while like everything was going to be alright, that they were all okay.

She shook her head, still trying to process the fact that they all just shared such a light hearted moment like they weren’t all still battling through grief and their own personal demons.

“What?” said Stiles softly, clearly noticing Lydia still lost in her own emotions. God, thought Lydia, it felt so good to see him that happy. She couldn’t remember the last time she saw him appear truly happy. She shook her head again.

“I just think it’s funny that you’re giving him shit when you are the clumsiest person I’ve ever met,” she teased, glancing down at him from the other end of the bed. They were laying top and tails along the bottom of the bed, his head next to her legs.

“I’m not clumsy, I’m just,” he started in his defence, but then paused. They both knew there was no way he could create a convincing counter argument. He grimaced, visual realisation that he had no leg to stand on spreading across his face. “Yeah, I don’t know where I was going with that.”

“Exactly,” Lydia laughed, tossing her head back.

Scott returned shortly after that as they sat in comfortable silence. They finished the movie, and another, then ordered Chinese food, which they waited for and ate downstairs before putting on another movie. It was almost midnight and the second movie that they’d watched after dinner was just finishing, the credits rolling across the tv screen. Lydia was tired. Her eyes had started to itch halfway through that third movie and she could feel her muscles growing slack as they ached for rest. She could tell that Scott was tired too, he’d been yawning a lot. Scott stood up, putting his pillows back in place and preparing to turn off the tv, but when he looked towards the end of the bed his expression changed. The surprised and amused look on Scott’s face intrigued Lydia, and she looked to her side to find Stiles fast asleep, his head lolling to the side and one arm dangling off the end of the bed.

“Should we wake him up?” whispered Lydia as she exchanged a glance with Scott. She couldn’t believe she didn’t notice that he’d fallen asleep, grinning with amusement as she looked again at his sleeping form.

“No,” Scott answered.

“He’s still in all of his clothes,” Lydia said, glancing back towards Scott. She understood his need to leave him undisturbed, he really needed any sleep he could get, and he appeared to be in a peaceful sleep, he wasn’t talking or thrashing around like he did when he had a nightmare while she was staying over at his house. Lydia assumed Scott was thinking the exact thing she was.

“Just take off his shoes,” Scott instructed, moving over towards the end of the bed where Stiles’ legs were hanging off, his feet still planted on the carpet. “I’ll help you get his legs on the bed so he doesn’t roll off.”

“Sure,” said Lydia, dropping to the floor next to his feet and taking one of his legs in her hands.

“Hey Stiles,” said Lydia quietly when she felt him start to stir as she took of his shoe. “It’s just me, Lydia. I’m just taking your shoes off, okay.”

“Okay,” he mumbled, barely comprehensible. Lydia slid the sneaker off his foot and placed it on the floor, shuffling on the carpet over to his other leg. Scott had moved to the other side of the room to turn off the tv.

“Lydia,” Stiles mumbled once the sound from the tv died. Lydia could feel him trying to move, his leg jerking around in her hand. “I don’t...”

“You’re fine,” Lydia reassured him, her voice gentle in the silence of the room. She pulled the other sneaker off his foot and placed it next to the other one at the side of the bed before rising to her feet. “Whatever it is. It’s going to be fine, you just go back to sleep.”

Stiles grumbled something incoherent. Lydia watched as he tried to move his head but just ended up back in the position they found him in. Lydia felt Scott’s presence beside her and she turned to look at him.

He motioned for Lydia to move out of the way as he grabbed Stiles’ legs and hoisted them onto the bed, so that he was lying with his feet near the pillows. Scott made sure that he wasn’t along the edge of the bed, that way if he started moving in the night he was less likely to fall off. Small bursts of warmth at how peaceful he looked spread like opening flower buds in Lydia’s chest. She hoped he had a long and restful sleep.

“Should we cover him?” she asked. Scott moved over to the side of the bed where Stiles’ head was, bending down so his mouth was level with Stiles’ ear.

“Hey buddy,” he whispered softly. “You’re lying on the blanket, do you want to lift up a second.”

“Whu…” Stiles responded, shifting a little. Scott stood upright again, glancing over at Lydia.

“Never mind,” he said, laughing a little. A second of silence passed between the two of them, and Lydia realised that Scott now had no bed to sleep on. He could curl up in the small space that Stiles wasn’t taking up, but she doubted that they’d both fit comfortably with the way Stiles was sprawled out.

“What about you?” she asked Scott, glancing down at the bed.

“I’ll sleep in the chair,” he answered, looking at the brown plaid chair tucked in the corner of the room. “You go get ready for bed.”

“Ok,” Lydia agreed quietly, moving across the room to pick up her bag and shoes. Just before she head out of the room and down the hall to where she would be sleeping, she turned to look at Scott. “Goodnight Scott.”

“Night, Lydia,” he replied with a smile, and with that she left the room.

Once Lydia was settled in bed, an immense feeling of gratefulness hit her. She was grateful for this day and the friends she got to spend it with, grateful that she got to have fun for what felt like the first time in weeks. She got to see them laugh, see them happy, a sight she would never take for granted again. Lydia realised, as she settled down against the pillows, that this was the first time that she hadn’t thought about Alison. Usually Alison was her last thought before she went to bed, her first thought when she woke up every morning and a constant fixture in her thoughts throughout the day. Today that hadn’t happened. Lydia closed her eyes with a soaring sense of happiness in her chest. She was okay, her friends were okay, and for once everything didn’t seem quite so awful after all.


	10. Chapter 10

The air was cold in Stiles’ bedroom. He’d had the window open, and then closed it because the room got too chilly, and then opened it again, just a little, so a consistently icy breeze blew into the room as he lay under his sheets on his laptop. He wasn’t sure why his room still felt so bizarre to him at night, but he decided that the cold air from outside was sobering against whatever unwelcome thought at the back of his mind was making the walls of his bedroom seem smaller. Making the room cold was the latest in a series of temporary coping mechanisms to deal with the uncomfortable feelings Stiles was left with whenever he was alone at night. So far he had progressed through constantly playing music, moving the furniture around (or attempting to before his dad came in and asked what the hell he was doing), sleeping during the day and spending all night outside and even sleeping on the floor. Stiles could definitely admit that ever since he moved past barely functioning his behaviour had been somewhat erratic, but as long as it kept him from going to back to being so consumed with guilt that he didn’t sleep, eat or barely get out of bed it was fine by him.

After finishing another YouTube video that he only half watched, Stiles decided that he should find something else to do. He’d told himself that he wasn’t going to call Lydia tonight, as he’d done so every night this week and he was sure she could use a break from him dragging her out of bed, even if she wasn’t sleeping. Just as he closed his tab, his phone started ringing. He scoffed at the irony as he went to pick it up.

“Hey Lydia,” he said, moving the laptop off his legs as he sat up in bed. “What’s up?”

“Were you sleeping?” asked Lydia, her voice quiet and almost apologetic. Something immediately felt off.

“No,” Stiles reassured her, feeling uneasiness spread in his chest. While most of their late night phone calls didn’t exactly have happy tones, this felt different. Stiles had a gut feeling that something wasn’t right, for two reasons. One, it was only 11:15pm, usually they would call each other just after one am, and two, she rarely called him first unless she was worried about him or seriously upset. “What’s wrong?”

“Could you come and pick me up?” She said, and again there was a quietly solemn tone to her voice that just confirmed Stiles’ suspicions even further. Her voice usually had much more life to it. He would know, he loved listening to her.

“Of course,” he answered, his voice softening as his worry for her grew.

“Thank you,” Lydia replied, her voice barely a whisper, and then she hung up. Stiles was already halfway out of bed by the time the line went dead.

Lydia stared at the phone in her hands for a good two minutes before she put it on her nightstand and started getting out of bed. Her body protested as she moved to get ready, a deep fatigue lacing her muscles. She ignored it. She’d given in to that heavy aching feeling too much today, and she knew that right now she really did not want to be alone. She wanted to tell someone about what she’d done today, and there was one person who immediately came to mind.

After throwing on some clothes and running a brush through her hair, Lydia dragged herself downstairs and out into the cold of her front yard. The frosty air hit her with such a force that it felt like she’d ran into a brick wall, but she welcomed it. It reminded her that she was here, that she was present, and also distracted from the hollow ache that coursed through her body and made every movement feel like she was wading through water with stones strapped to her feet.

It wasn’t long before Stiles pitched up, the Jeep’s headlights illuminating the bottom of the drive. Lydia stumbled towards the vehicle, feeling the cold invade her senses as her feet propelled her forwards. Stiles was different when she reached the bottom of the drive. Usually he would wind down his window and make some quip about the weather or what time it was, but he didn’t even wave as Lydia made her way over to the passenger side door and climbed in. He knew something was wrong, and she couldn’t decide that made things better or not.

“So what are we doing tonight?” asked Stiles once Lydia was strapped in. She finally looked at him then, turning her head just a fraction so their eyes met. She could see immediately that he knew something wasn’t right, the look in his eyes was so attentive and soft that he was practically begging her to tell him. She shot him a thin smile and then looked away.

“Can you take me somewhere quiet?” she said, her eyes on the way that the air appeared like steam in the Jeep’s headlights. She couldn’t look at him right now, not when his eyes were on her like that.

Stiles didn’t say a word in response, instead he just started driving. He knew exactly where he was going to take her. Lydia was silent for the entire car journey, and it took Stiles everything he had not to keep glancing at her as he drove. It pained him to see her like this, deeply pained him. There was a desire to pull her to him, bundle her up in his arms and ask her what was wrong flowing through him with such force that it felt like it was an actual physical part of him.

He stopped the car when they reached the edge of the woods. The road was empty and the mass of trees surrounding them made it so they could barely see a thing. Stiles looked over at Lydia, who was sat leaning slightly to one side with her elbow resting on the window. She didn’t turn to meet his gaze, and he noticed how small she looked in the seat. She looked almost like she’d been half sucked into it, like she was curling her body up so the seat swallowed her whole.

“Do you want to talk?” Stiles asked tentatively, his eyes never leaving her. Lydia blinked, like his voice had snapped her out of some kind of trance, and then shifted in the chair so she was sat facing forward.

“It’s the first of December today,” she stated, her voice completely flat. That fact in itself revealed the unyielding torrent of emotion that she was obviously trying to hold back.

“Yeah,” Stiles responded.

“It’s the first day of the first month she won’t be here for,” Lydia explained, finally turning her head to meet his eyes. The look Stiles was met with knocked the wind out of him. The devastation brimming in her wide, teary eyes, the way her lips were forced together, her chin wobbling. He watched Lydia take a deep breath and forgot to take one himself, only realising when his chest started to feel tight. “And I didn’t want to end the day alone.”

The realisation finally sunk in for Stiles. A new month had started, one that Allison was never going to be a part of. The reality of the situation made his head spin for a second, followed by an onslaught of guilt that crashed into him with the force of a tidal wave. Another vicious reminder that he was here, alive, wrestling with the knowledge of the things he’d done, and she wasn’t.

“So what do you want to do?” stammered Stiles, trying to make sure he didn’t mess this up and make her feel worse somehow. “Do you want me to just sit here with you? Do you want me to-”

“Talk to me,” Lydia requested, her voice barely a whisper. Stiles swallowed as the air went uncomfortably silent.

“Well I don’t have much to say really,” he started, feeling his tongue stumble over the words. He was tugging on one of his sleeves. “Everything’s kind of the same right now.”

They exchanged a quick glance, and an uneasy kind of tension passed between them. It pushed a deep sinking feeling into each of them, like neither of them knew what to say or do.

“Everything sucks,” Stiles continued, breaking the silence that felt so uncomfortable it was tangible. He started to move his hands and he explained further. “And everyone’s just doing the exact same thing every day so it feels like we’re all stuck.”

“Yeah,” said Lydia quietly after half a second of silence. She didn’t look at Stiles, not at first, she just kept her eyes on her hands. “I’d been trying to think of the best way to verbalise how I feel right now, and I think stuck is a very accurate description.”

“Yeah, me too,” he agreed.

Lydia looked at Stiles, offering a small smile by way of acknowledging their shared existential frustration. He blinked at her once before returning it, pulling his eyes away from her towards the expanse of darkness outside before bringing them back.

“Hey,” Stiles said suddenly, leaning towards Lydia over the gearstick. “Maybe we should talk about something a little less heavy, you know, like what did you do today?”

“I went to Allison’s grave,” she answered, a distant tone to her voice, like her mind was somewhere else.

“Oh,” said Stiles, awkwardness flooding through him. He drummed his fingers on his leg as he thought of something to say. “Okay. Is that all you did?”

“Pretty much,” Lydia responded flatly. Stiles could see how drained she was, how much visiting the grave had taken it out of her. She turned to face him.

“Have you been yet?” she asked.

The words might as well have been bullets.

“Cant bring myself to do it,” Stiles sighed, feeling his insides turn heavy and cold with the weight of the guilt. He’d thought about going, feeling guilty that he hadn’t yet, but every time he even considered it the guilt over his role in what happened to her just amplified until the two different strains of guilt ripped him apart. “Every time I think about it I just feel like I don’t deserve to.”

Lydia felt her heart sink at his words, and for a split second, she wondered if with all the sadness it had contained today, her heart might completely break.

“You were her friend,” she reminded him, struggling to articulate exactly what she thought he needed to hear. “Of course you deserve to.”

“Thanks,” he replied quietly, giving her a thin smile before looking down at his lap.

It troubled Lydia, how they seemed to be going round in circles with this. He seemed to be doing so well right now, but this same issue kept coming back like a weed that hadn’t been killed at the roots. Maybe he’d made peace with it, she thought, but if he had then why were they spending so much time out in the middle of the night and why hadn’t he gone to visit the grave? There must be a lot he hadn’t dealt with. She wondered if he’d even dealt with Allison dying, considering he was so wrapped up in his own perceived sense of responsibility for it. Then it hit her that he probably hadn’t.

“Do you know what I think?” she said, catching his attention.

“What?” Stiles replied.

“I think,” Lydia began, shifting in the seat. “You’ve spent so much time beating yourself up and feeling guilty about what happened to Allison that you haven’t been able to properly grieve.” She watched his eyes widen as she spoke, the growing vulnerability in them. “You’ve been so focused on what the Nogitsune did that you haven’t thought about how you feel over losing a friend.”

The truth to her words struck him so hard that it felt like he had been punched in the stomach. The conscious realisation that she was right, that he hadn’t properly dealt with Allison’s death, was so forceful that Stiles had to play the words over again in his head, just to remember what Lydia had said, because all he could think about was Allison dying. Stiles thought he’d dealt with Allison’s death. He thought he’d come to terms with it after the Nogitsune was destroyed, when he got home after and everything hit him all at once. When he didn’t get out of bed for two days and refused to speak to anyone, even Scott, because he needed time to deal with everything that had happened. He thought he’d mourned Allison’s death in all the tears that silently slid down his cheeks in those few days, but he knew now that he hadn’t. He’d been mourning what he thought was the loss of his humanity.

“So how do you feel about it?” asked Lydia, her voice strikingly soft against the harsh flood of emotions Stiles was fighting to contain. He inhaled deeply, preparing himself as he looked right at Lydia.

“God, I really miss her,” he confessed, closing his eyes and leaning back until the back of his head hit the seat. It felt so strange hearing the words out loud, he finally felt like he deserved to say that he missed her. Stiles ran a hand through his hair. “Like at school, I keep expecting to see her. And when I’m texting Scott about something and thinking, he’s so going to get Allison involved in this.”

“Yeah,” said Lydia quietly, her heart aching from the pain radiating from him.

“And I know it gets easier,” he sighed, resting his hand against the back of his neck briefly before bringing it down to rest on his leg again. “But that doesn’t mean it doesn’t royally suck right now.”

“And then everyone seems so much more together than you do,” Lydia added, deeply sharing his frustrations.

“I know, it’s the worst,” Stiles agreed before pausing. He knew that even though everyone else, especially Scott, seemed so together it was almost infuriating, they weren’t. Lydia probably didn’t know how many times Scott had sat at Stiles’ house and cried, while he sat there and listened, reassuring him that he was going to be okay. “Although, just so you know, Scott isn’t exactly as together as he looks, trust me.”

“Of course he isn’t,” Lydia responded, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “He just doesn’t want his pack to see it.”

She gave Stiles a small smile as she met his gaze, both of them silently acknowledging that they were struggling through this tragedy in their own way, as was everyone around them, but eventually they would all be okay. Lydia pulled her focus away, an idea formulating in her head. Her eyes widened as she looked out at the stars and moon above them, the tiny twinkling lights blinking just above the expansive darkness of the woods.

“I’ve had an idea,” she stated, unbuckling her seatbelt.

“What?” said Stiles, confused by her sudden outburst.

“Get out of the car,” Lydia instructed, already opening the passenger side door and climbing out of the Jeep.

“What are you doing?” Stiles asked, blinking as he registered that Lydia had got out of the Jeep. He shook his head, a perplexed and exasperated expression on his face as he got out of the Jeep too. Stiles’ lack of understanding of what was happening only increased when he walked over to the front of the Jeep and found Lydia climbing onto the hood, sitting down and making herself comfortable. He started at her in utter confusion, his mouth open in preparation for speech, but he couldn’t think of any words other than ‘what the fuck?’

“Come up here,” said Lydia, patting the spot next to her on the hood. Still unsure as to what exactly was happening, Stiles shrugged and then climbed up on the hood of the Jeep, sitting himself next to Lydia and leaning against the windshield.

A moment passed before either of them spoke. Stiles just watched Lydia as she looked up staring at the sky.

“Do you think she’s up there watching us?” Lydia asked, her eyes never leaving the stars. Stiles then realised what she was doing. He shuffled closer to her so their sides were resting against each other.

“If she is then she’s definitely that really bright star right there,” he replied, pointing up at the brightest star in the section of sky they could see. Lydia followed his finger until she found the star, her heart pinching as she thought about it being Allison.

“Tell her how you feel,” she said quietly.

“What?” Stiles stammered, his heart suddenly beating faster. He looked at Lydia watching him, her eyes wide, imploring him to do this.

“Well since you don’t feel ready to go to her grave,” she started to explain, looking up at that star. “Talk to her here.”

Stiles could feel his heart rise into his mouth as he thought about everything he wanted to say. He was really going to do this here, in front of Lydia. She was so determined for him to do this he could practically feel it radiating off her. She placed a reassuring hand on his arm when she noticed him hesitating. He took a deep breath, trying to fight the fact his heart felt like it was trying to ram its way out of his chest, and leaned back against the windshield.

He said everything, let it all out into the open, his eye on that star the whole time. He confessed how much he missed Allison, and how unfair he felt it was that she was taken from them so soon. He mentioned all the badass things she should have gone on to do with her life, and how different things felt without her. Tears started to slide down his cheeks, but he kept talking. He admitted that he hadn’t processed her being gone properly, being so wrapped up in his own guilt, and he felt bad about that, and lastly he said how deeply sorry he was for his role in what happened to her, and how he’d carry that responsibility with him every day.

Lydia had to stop herself from welling up as the air went quiet again. She watched Stiles wipe the tears from his face before giving her a relieved look. She knew that he felt better now that he’d got everything off his chest, and although he didn’t say it, his eyes thanked her for encouraging him.

“What do you think she’d be saying about us right now?” asked Stiles, glancing up again at that one bright star.

“She’d tell you to get your shit together and stop feeling guilty for a start,” Lydia answered, the raw emotion from listening to him confess everything subtly leaking into her voice.

“She’d probably kill me if she saw the state I let myself get in,” Stiles continued, knowing that she wouldn’t want him feeling that guilty.

“Oh, she would,” Lydia agreed, before both of them started to quietly laugh. They both knew that Allison would be telling them to pick themselves up, to stop feeling so stuck and live life to the fullest, because they deserved it, even if it didn’t feel like it.

“She’d tell you that it’s okay to live life without her,” Stiles told Lydia, the words stopping her breath and causing tears to brim in her eyes. “That you don’t need to feel bad for moving on.”

Lydia felt her heart explode with pain and sorrow as she longed to hear those words. She’d been so afraid of feeling guilty for living a life without Allison in it when she had done so much for her, made her the person she was today. Lydia had no idea where she would be without Allison, and the guilt of moving on without her was so strong that Lydia didn’t realise just how much she needed to hear those words until she did.

“She’d ask you to keep an eye on Scott,” Lydia said to Stiles, the pair of them sharing a look of promise to take care of Allison’s first love as he dealt with that loss. Another moment of silence passed between them, the cold air thick with emotion.

“She’d tell you what a great friend you are,” Stiles said to Lydia, and at that moment, all of the tears that had built up fell from Lydia’s eyes like a waterfall flowing through a burst dam. Allison’s friendship had meant everything to her. What she wouldn’t do to hear those words from her mouth, confirmation that she was as good a friend to Allison as Allison had been to her. In that moment it was all she wanted, and the pain that she would never get it tore her insides to shreds.

“And you,” Lydia responded, sniffling as she wiped her face. “She’d tell all of us, and ask us to make sure we stick together through everything.” The look that passed between them was another promise.

It suddenly hit Lydia how cold it actually was, and she welcomed the icy chill in the air against the burning in her cheeks. She looked up at that star, wishing that somewhere out there Allison could see them, hear them, know how much she was loved.

“I miss her so much,” Lydia stated, her voice strained as the lump in her throat threatened to choke her. She bit her lip as more tears streamed down her face, leaning in closer to Stiles so that her head was resting on his shoulder.

“Me too,” He whispered, leaning into the warmth of Lydia’s body pressed against his.

They sat up there in silence for a while, just staring up at the sky. Eventually they both got too cold and Stiles drove them home. Lydia looked at the clock when she arrived back in her bedroom. 00: 32. A new day had started. Another day in this new month that Allison would never get to see. Lydia settled down in bed, her entire body heavy from the weight of everything that had been said in the last hour. Before she fell into unconsciousness, she made sure that she looked up out of the window and found that star.


	11. Chapter 11

Lydia was surrounded by snow. She was walking across miles and miles of endless white in search of something she knew she was never going to find. She was holding things, items she’d collected on her journey that were clues to whatever she was trying to find. She looked at the soft sweater she was holding, it was green and decorated with dark hears. There was something strapped over her shoulder too. She pulled it down and found a bow in her hands. As soon as she realised who she was looking for and the fact that she was never going to find her, a buzzing sound filled her ears. It stopped and then started again, it’s consistent hum reverberating through her as she stood in the snow.

Lydia woke up, quickly realising that the buzzing sound she’d heard in her dream was actually her phone ringing. She didn’t have enough time to register the hollow ache in her chest from dreaming about Allison as she picked up the phone. She didn’t need to check caller ID. There was only one person who called her at this time.

“Hey Stiles,” She said softly down the phone. “Is everything okay?”

A slew of unintelligible words fired rapidly into Lydia’s ear from the other end of the line. The only thing she could make out was the incredibly distressed tone of Stiles’ voice. Her stomach sank.

“Ok,” Lydia said softly, trying to think what she could do to get Stiles to calm down. “Slow down, I can’t understand what you’re saying.”

“I needed to talk to someone,” He said before his voice broke. Lydia could hear his shaky breathing mixing with the crackling white noise of the phone line. “And I couldn’t, I couldn’t call Scott because I-”

“It’s okay,” she cut him off, keeping her voice gentle and reassuring. She bit her lip, thinking of what to tell him next. “It’s okay. Just breathe with me for a second, you’re going to be okay.”

Stiles hummed in response to let Lydia know that he was listening to her. Lydia took a breath, making herself comfortable in bed so she could give him her full attention.

“Listen to me,” she instructed, feeling a nervous energy creep into her stomach. “Breathe in through your nose, hold it, and then breathe out slowly through your mouth. Got it?”

“Yeah,” Stiles replied shakily before following her instructions. He clung to the gentle guidance of her voice to try and block out the way that his insides felt like they were ripping each other apart. He ran the sound of her words through his mind like a song as he did as she instructed; breathing in as needles of fear stabbed his skin, holding his breath as his lungs felt like they were going to explode, and then breathing out, slowly pushing the air from his mouth when every cell in his body felt like it was bouncing off the surrounding cells at a hundred miles per hour.

“Ok, and again,” said Lydia after he had followed her steps. Her voice was firm and commanding but beautifully soft at the same time. Stiles wrapped his sense of focus around it like an anchor as she spoke, trying to shut out everything else. This time he followed her instructions in time with her voice. “In, hold, hold, out.”

Lydia listened to Stiles’ breathing, feeling a protective urge flood through her. She desperately wanted to know what had panicked him so much, just so she could reassure him that everything was okay. A sudden ache for him to be there in person rather than over the phone burst in Lydia’s chest.

“How do you feel?” she asked tentatively once she’d listened to his breathing long enough to know that her steps were working.

“Increasingly lightheaded,” Stiles replied. His voice was less shaky but there was still something about the tone of it that made the ball of discomfort bouncing around in Lydia’s stomach get bigger.

“Ok, lie down if you aren’t already,” she instructed firmly. She figured that he’d called her from his bed, but after finding out about his tendency to sleepwalk, and especially after that worrying night where he sleepwalked into the woods, she had to consider that he might not be.  “Then you can tell me what’s wrong.”

“Nightmare,” he breathed, panting like he’d just finished running a marathon. “Very bad nightmare.”

“Do you want to tell me about it?” asked Lydia tenderly, sympathy squeezing her heart as he confirmed her suspicions.

Stiles took a moment to think about it, still clinging to the sound of her voice like it was a lifeboat he was trying to climb into after being stuck out in a violently choppy ocean. Lydia was soft and steady against the chaos raging inside him. Hearing her made him picture her, and that image he used to try and pull himself through whatever he was facing. He wondered if there was anything she wouldn’t be able to pull him back from. If only she knew just how much power she had over him.

“I killed Scott,” he told her, struggling to get the words out of his mouth as the images from the dream invaded his train of thought.

 Lydia’s heart broke from the utter devastation in Stiles’ voice, like he was completely shocked that his unconscious brain could even conjure such an image. She could only imagine how horrific that must have been for him. It made her wish even more that they were having this conversation face to face so she could give him a hug.

“Listen to me,” She responded, a familiar ache at the fact he’d dreamt about losing his best friend spreading through her. It made the sadness she was feeling intensify when she remembered that at least his was only a dream, that he was awake and Scott was still alive. She didn’t have that option. “Scott is fine. I’m a banshee, I would know.”

“I know,” Stiles said quietly before pausing. He couldn’t get the images out of his head. Graphic details of his best friend lying mangled in a pool of blood on the floor, bones and organs exposed and his neck snapped so that his blood coated head lolled at a disturbing angle. Stiles had to check he was still in his room and not back in that dream before continuing to talk to Lydia. “But it was bloody and messy and awful and I can still feel-” He stopped abruptly, closing his eyes as his stomach turned. A cold sweat soaked his skin as he tried and failed to push the images away. “I just don’t know how I’m going to be able to look at him without seeing…”

“Without seeing what?” Lydia asked impatiently when Stiles went silent again, her voice high pitched and tight. She heard a faint noise down the line. It sounded like the noise that usually accompanied a grimace when people stumbled onto or witnessed something disgusting.

“I’ll be back in a sec,” said Stiles, his voice strained like he was talking through gritted teeth. Lydia quickly realised that he most likely was, and also the reason that he was leaving.

Lydia ran her hand through her hair as she listened to the crackle of the line in the absence of sound on the other end. She sighed, remembering the night that she slept at his house when this had happened. He never did tell her what that nightmare about. She wondered if that meant it had been about her. Lydia shook the thought away, trying not to let her mind run wild at the possibilities of what Stiles could have been dreaming about, let alone what he could have possibly done to Scott in the dream he’d just been having. Her arm was starting to ache from where she was holding her phone to her ear. She switched hands, pondering how many more nights they were going to spend like this.

A few minutes later she heard the barely there sound of footsteps down the line, and then the muffled sounds of the phone being moved.

“You okay?” Lydia asked softly.

“Ugh. Yeah I’m fine,” Stiles groaned, getting comfortable under his covers in a hope that it would distract from how unpleasant his body felt right now. “That hasn’t happened in a while,” he continued, almost laughing bitterly at the fact. It was only the violent nightmares that made him throw up, the ones that were just plain terrifying only made his anxiety so bad that he refused to sleep, and on the odd occasion had resulted in panic attacks.

“Well at least it’s not happening all the time,” Lydia replied, trying to find a positive in a situation that she knew he was undoubtedly unhappy about. She was thankful that their issues with sleeping weren’t similar. Her dreams left her feeling crushing and overwhelming sadness, so much that she’d wanted to avoid sleep all together, but because it was that when she dreamed Allison was there and everything was okay, it was coming back to reality afterwards that was too painful for Lydia.

“Yeah,” Stiles said sarcastically. “At least.”

“What’s wrong,” Lydia sighed, already knowing the answer.

“I just,” Stiles started, but then paused, running a hand across his clammy forehead and through his hair. “I’d been doing so well getting over all this, trying to take back control. It’s just frustrating, you know.”

Lydia sighed. She really did want to help him, but she had no idea how. He seemed to have it figured out what he needed to do, but the desperation in his voice made her wonder if maybe he was pushing himself too hard to try and fight this. It was hardly out of character, and he needed to be putting as little pressure on himself as possible right now and just focus on getting through.

“Well maybe you’re putting too much pressure on yourself to try and regain control,” she suggested, considering all the conversations they’d had about his health since they got rid of the Nogitsune. Maybe what he needed to be doing was the opposite of what he was currently doing, after all, he’d made the most progress when he wasn’t even trying.

“What are you thinking?” Stiles asked, desperation and intrigue swirling together in his voice. “Because Scott and I talked about this and trying to take back control was the only solution we could come up with.”

For a split second Lydia couldn’t think of what to say to him. She could hear how much he wanted an answer, a solution, and end to this. She didn’t have one. The subtle sigh that left her lips led Stiles to continue speaking.

“I really hoped it was working too. It felt like it was,” he said, sounding completely dejected. “I just don’t know what else to do.”

“See,” said Lydia softly, another thread of sadness weaving its way through her chest. “This is what I mean by you’re putting too much pressure on yourself.”

Stiles considered her words, confusion and exhaustion pulling at his concentration as he tried to understand exactly what she was saying. He knew he was putting pressure on himself, but he was so desperate for things to get back to normal that he didn’t know what else to do. He didn’t want to keep living like this, but he saw no other options. And now Lydia was telling him that the only feasible option he’d been given could be doing him more harm than good. Stiles ran his hand through his hair again, forcing his eyes closed and squeezing so that the muscles in his cheeks tightened.

“You’ve told yourself that you need this control,” Lydia continued, fiddling with the edge of her duvet as she sat up against the headboard. “So you’re putting yourself under a lot of pressure to achieve it, and maybe that’s not the right thing for you to be doing.”

“But what else is there?” asked Stiles, his voice flat.

Lydia rested the hand that wasn’t holding her cell phone to her ear against her forehead, leaning into it as she took a breath. It frustrated her how little she could do for Stiles. He’d always been an unwavering pillar of support for her and she desperately wanted to return the favour when he needed her most, but the only thing she could do was offer her opinion and hope that it helped.

“Listen,” she instructed, hoping that her firmness was enough to pull him back from whatever emotions were currently consuming him. “When have you been making the most progress?”

“Um,” mumbled Stiles as he tried to think. “When I’ve been distracted.”

“When you’ve not been thinking about it,” Lydia elaborated, structuring the direction of her point clearly in her mind. “You weren’t letting your emotions control you, or trying to control them. You made the most progress when you weren’t thinking about control at all.”

“Right,” said Stiles slowly, raking his hand through his hair once more and then leaving it there, resting his forehead against his palm. He clenched strands of hair between his fingers as he replayed Lydia’s words in his head, trying to pave a road towards resolution with them.

“Try to stop chasing control for a while,” said Lydia, her voice now soft and encouraging rather than resolute and instructive. “If you even know how.” They both laughed, harsh whispers of amusement caught in both of their throats.

“I’ll try,” Stiles replied, his tone the most relaxed and upbeat it had been during this entire phone call. He paused, ruminating on the discomfort of the situation. “I’ll try just about anything.”

“Well, what I would suggest that you do,” Lydia started, feeling her heart sink just a little when the sad undertones returned to his voice. “Is put on a movie or some music, lie back down and just listen to it.”

“Thanks Lyds,” said Stiles, his voice softening as a smile started slowly spreading across his face.

“And remember,” Lydia added. “Don’t think about control. Just get through whatever it is you’re feeling.”

Stiles could hear how much she wanted this to work for him through her voice. He could almost feel it, that gentle determination. Warmth spread through him as he thought about how supportive she was, and for the first time since he’d woken up he felt calm.

“If this works,” he started, his voice breaking slightly as his emotions crept in. “You’re a genius.”

“I’m a genius anyway,” Lydia replied, a playful smile on her lips that shaped the tone of her words.

“I know,” Stiles responded, thinking about how glad he was that she’d been here to talk him through everything. “Thanks for listening to me, and I’m sorry if I woke you up or anything.”

“Happy to help you,” said Lydia, a subtly glowing warmth forming in her chest. “And if you need to call me again, I’m here.”

“I know,” replied Stiles, Lydia’s unflinching support tugging at his heart, gratefulness and longing twisting together and coursing through him. “See you in a few hours.”

“Yeah,” said Lydia. “Good luck.”

“Thanks,” Stiles responded. “I need it.” A moment of silence passed down the line.

“Now go,” Lydia ordered.

“Yes, ma’am,” laughed Stiles in response.

“Bye,” said Lydia, taking in a long breath as she prepared to hang up the phone. A calming essence started flowing through her veins. Happy that she’d helped, a sense of peace consumed her.

“Bye, Lyds,” said Stiles before ending the call. He looked at his phone background, deliberately making a point of not looking at the little time display in the top right corner of the screen. He didn’t need to know what time it was, that would only make him start over thinking.

The guilt didn’t set in until Stiles was grabbing his headphones from the nightstand. He thought he’d be able to get away with it, that his conscience would give him a break on going to Lydia for help just this once, because he was desperate and couldn’t face Scott. He hated how twisted his head was, especially when it came to Lydia. He felt constantly guilty around her, whenever she was upset because of her grief, whenever he went to her for help. He hated that Lydia was his torture and his salvation all at once, and he wanted this feeling of crushing guilt whenever he was with her to just disappear, He wanted it gone more than the nightmares, but he couldn’t tell her that.

Stiles sighed as he slipped the headphones into each ear, starting up his music as he sank back down against his pillow. No more guilt, he told himself, no more images of that horrific nightmare and no thoughts of control, just the music. He told himself to focus purely on the music. He was going to try and relinquish control. He closed his eyes, allowing the sounds filling his ears to take over as he breathed in deeply, telling himself that all he needed was to just get through this.


	12. Chapter 12

Lydia pulled at the hem of her skirt as she sat herself down onto one of the chairs surrounding the McCall’s kitchen table. Scott had gone to answer the door while Kira, Stiles and herself went into the kitchen to wait. They had decided during the week to have another group sleepover at Scott’s house, and this time Kira was with them. Lydia was glad she was. Things were finally starting to feel more normal than not, and it was nice for them to all spend time together without school being involved. Ever since that night where she and Stiles went out to the woods, Lydia was feeling less guilty about living her life without Allison. She still thought of her every day, and that was no less painful that it was after it first happened, but she didn’t feel quite so much like she was drowning now.

“Ok,” Said Scott as he walked into the room, pulling Lydia away from her thoughts. He was holding four pizzas stacked on top of each other, his chin resting on the top box.

“So that’s two pepperonis,” Scott announced as he slid the top two boxes off the stack and into the places at the table where he and Stiles were sitting. “A spicy chicken,” He continued, handing Lydia her box before moving down to the other side of the table where Kira was sat. “And a Hawaiian.”

“Thank you,” Kira said loudly, flashing Scott a wide smile. Lydia watched Scott smile at her in return, his eyes softening as he looked at her, before he sat down on the empty seat at the head of the table.

“Why is he looking at me like that?” Kira asked Scott, leaning towards his chair from where she sat on his right. She was speaking in reference to the confused, almost dirty look Stiles was giving her. Lydia couldn’t see it, because he was sat next to her and leaning on his chair so that currently had his back to her, but she knew he was doing it.

“Don’t ask,” Scott answered. Kira blinked in confusion.

“Why?” she said quietly to Scott, before turning to look at Stiles. “Something wrong with my pizza?”

“Here we go,” Lydia groaned to herself, rolling her eyes. She remembered this argument the last time they’d all had pizza together, and the time before that.

“It’s just wrong,” Stiles explained, moving his arm and almost smacking it against the table as he talked. Kira frowned at him from the opposite side of the table, and then he remembered that she was new to the group and hadn’t eaten pizza with them before, and was therefore unfamiliar with his intense disagreement with pineapple being put on pizza.

“What is?” she asked, confusion and intrigue lining her features.

“Putting pineapple on pizza,” Stiles answered, ignoring Scott’s subtle eye roll. Kira laughed.

“No it’s not,” she replied, an amused gleam in her dark brown eyes.

“Pineapple,” he exclaimed, shaking his head. “Does not belong on pizza. It just doesn’t.”

“You won’t win,” Scott said to Kira, tilting his head in her direction. Stiles noted the hint of judgement in his voice over the fact he was bringing this up yet again. “We’ve been having this argument since we were six.”

“And we’ve all heard this argument a million times,” Lydia chimed in, her voice sounding thoroughly bored. “Can we just eat.” She could already feeling her patience for this conversation wearing thin, painfully aware that she was eating dinner next to the most annoyingly argumentative person she knew.

“Sounds good to me,” Kira replied, her tone far too positive. She then opened her pizza box and made as big a deal as she could about eating the first slice, smirking at Stiles as she did. Lydia found herself greatly amused by this. She had to suppress a snicker.

“I can’t watch,” declared Stiles, shifting in his chair so that his body was no longer angled towards Scott and was instead now leaning in Lydia’s direction. Lydia rolled her eyes.

“Stop being so dramatic and just eat,” she instructed, exasperation lacing her voice.

“Gladly,” replied Stiles, opening the box hurriedly. “I feel like I haven’t had pizza in like a year.” Lydia watched him as he pulled the biggest slice of pizza out of the box, stringy strands of melted cheese hanging off it and wrapping around his fingers, and then shoved about half the slice into his mouth, moaning loudly as he ate it. She shot him an incredulous look.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia began sarcastically. “Do you want us to leave you two alone?” it took Stiles a second to even notice Lydia was talking to him.

“Hey,” he countered once he’d swallowed his mouthful. “I couldn’t eat for two weeks, let me have this.” Lydia just rolled her eyes and Stiles went back to eating his pizza.

It occurred to Stiles as he was halfway through his second slice that this was probably the first full meal he’d had since the removal of the Nogitsune. His dad had still been giving him smaller portions at home, just to make sure his body wasn’t rushing in adjusting back to a normal eating pattern, and he ate snacks frequently throughout the day to make up for the smaller meals. Although now felt like as good a time as any to make the final step back towards his regular eating habits, and the last time he had pizza was when his dad brought him a slice to eat in the week after Allison’s death, of which he’d had two bites and then let it go crusty on his desk, so he was definitely going to enjoy this pizza as much as humanly possible.

“You’ve got a little,” Kira interrupted the comfortable silence that had settled in the room while everyone ate. She was pointing to a trail of grease smeared along the side of Scott’s mouth.

“Seriously?” Scott exclaimed, putting his half eaten slice back in his box. “Again.”

“Looks like I’m just going to have to mom you again,” Kira replied, giggling slightly as she wiped it away. Lydia watched Kira from the opposite side of the table, smiling at the warm feeling spreading in her chest as she observed the two of them. They were undeniably cute together. They had tried to hesitate on flirting with each other while everyone was still grieving, Lydia noticed it in the way they were even more tentative with each other than usual, especially at school. She hoped that they eventually defined their feelings for each other, but for now, Lydia was happy watching them shyly flirt.

“Well,” Stiles chimed in. “They do say wolves are messy eaters.”

“Do they?” countered Scott, raising an eyebrow.

“I’m sure someone has,” Stiles replied, a defensive awkwardness to his voice. “Somewhere.” Scott laughed.

“Well anyway,” He said, a playful smirk on his face and brightness in his chocolate brown eyes. “I’m not taking crap about messy eating from someone with a pizza sauce moustache.” Lydia watched Stiles jerk his head back slightly as he considered Scott’s words.

“What?” He said, sounding rather confused, before running the back of his hand across his mouth, looking down at the bright orange smears of pizza sauce in disbelief. “Oh, man. Why did no one tell me?” Everyone laughed.

“You assume the advantages of telling you are greater than the advantages of not telling you,” Lydia explained, the tone of her voice evident of how much she was amused by this. Stiles turned to face her.“Which just isn’t true.”

“So you guys would have let me sit there all night with pizza sauce around my face?” asked Stiles, his voice loud.

“Yeah,” responded the three of them in unison. Stiles blinked at them.

“Wow,” he said sarcastically. “I’m really feeling the love guys.”

“Well,” drawled Lydia, tilting her head slightly to the side as Stiles looked at her, disbelief etched into his features. “If you will insist on making out with the pizza slices rather than eating them.” She then proceeded to grab a slice out of her box and delicately take a bite out of it.

“See,” she said smugly after swallowing the mouthful of pizza. “No moustache.” Stiles shot her his annoyed look as an incomprehensible grumbling sound emitted from his throat. He turned away from her and continued to eat his food. Lydia laughed, shaking her head, before returning to hers.

They spent the rest of their time eating in mostly silence, the occasional quick conversation or grumble of feeling full passing between them. Eventually once everyone had stopped eating they moved to the living room, falling down onto the couch and into the chairs.

“So what are we going to do with ourselves tonight?” asked Scott from one of the armchairs, his arms folded over his chest.

“Nothing for another hour I hope,” groaned Stiles, who was slouched on the couch with his head lolling on one shoulder. He felt so full it was a wonder he could move, he definitely hadn’t been able to eat as much as he normally could and still felt like he could burst at any second. “I feel like I’m going to explode.”

“Me too,” added Kira, who was also slouched on the couch with her hands across her stomach. Lydia, who was sat in the other armchair, felt lucky that she had paced herself better and didn’t feel like she was about to drop into a food coma like those two.

“If you guys are gonna explode could you maybe do it outside,” said Scott playfully, a mischievous smile forming on his lips. “I’m pretty sure my mom won’t want guts all over the couch.”

“Hilarious,” Stiles scoffed, closing his eyes. Scott laughed.

“Maybe you’ll just pass out like last time,” said Lydia, glancing over to the couch where Stiles already looked like he was halfway there.

“It’s a shame I never took any pictures of that,” Scott added, causing Kira to shoot him a concerned look.

“Sleep pass out,” clarified Scott, raising his hand and waving it frantically to dismiss any ideas of the alternative. “Not faint pass out.”

“Oh,” Kira nodded. “Right.”

“Yeah, you guys don’t have to worry about me fainting on you anymore,” Stiles added from the couch. He couldn’t seem to decide if he wanted to keep his eyes open or closed. “At least not from exhaustion anyway.” There was still a good chance he’d faint on them if someone randomly whipped out a needle and started to use it, but he was no longer so weak that just moving around a lot made him feel like he was going to drop down at any second. It had been a good couple of weeks since he’d felt like that.

“Good,” said Scott, and Stiles knew that he was thinking about that weekend he’d spent here when he had that horrendous panic attack. He’d felt completely drained for the entire morning after that and almost passed out going down the stairs, which had scared the hell out of Scott.

“Oh yeah,” Said Kira suddenly from next to him. “I’ve been meaning to ask how you’re doing. My parents wanted to know.”

“Tell them I’m fine,” he said, turning as much as his body would allow him so look Kira in the eyes when he said it.

“Sure,” she replied, and he could tell that she believed him. He wasn’t completely dishonest, things were mostly fine. Everything you could see, anyway. He had no dark circles under his eyes which meant he was sleeping, but nobody saw the constant tossing and turning, the restlessness, the trembling and hyperventilating when he woke up from the inevitable nightmares, and he was happy to keep it that way. Things right now were manageable. He was doing well enough that none of his friends suspected just how much of his head was still dark and guilt ridden and confused. His body looked healthy enough that nobody noticed how much he was still struggling. He’d only called Lydia in the middle of the night once this week, and those were exceptional circumstances. Things weren’t great right now, but he could handle it, and therefore no one needed to know.

A few quick conversations passed between the four of them as they sat letting their food settle, including a competition over who could tell the worst joke that Scott started purely to keep Stiles awake as he knew he’d get all competitive and try to win, which he did. It even brought Kira out of her food induced drowsiness.

“It’s a shame we didn’t do this sooner,” said Scott, a solemn tone to his voice that seemed out of place. They all knew he was talking about doing it while Allison was still alive. “Have everyone sleep over at one person’s house for the night.”

“Yeah,” sighed Lydia, glancing at Scott. His eyes shone with how much he missed her in that moment, and Lydia felt her throat catch.

“It would have been fun,” added Stiles, who also sounded solemn.

“But we’re doing it now,” highlighted Scott, ever the optimist. “And Kira’s here with us. It’s her first pack night.”

“Pack night?” asked Kira, her brow furrowed.

“Nights where we all get together,” explained Scott.

“So what usually happens on pack nights?” Kira said, intrigued.

“Not much,” Lydia answered, watching the enthusiasm on Kira’s face dim slightly.

“Usually we just kinda hang out,” Scott elaborated. “Eat food.”

“Talk about how to stop impending supernatural doom,” Stiles finished, causing Kira to shoot him a strange look.

“Sounds great,” she said, a subtle hint of sarcasm and slight fear to her voice.

“We don’t have to do that last one right now,” Scott assured her. “Nothing has happened since the Nogitsune.” Everyone’s eyes kind of darted around the room at the use of the spirit’s name. None of them wanted to be reminded of it, but the memory was still there, lingering over all of them.

“But when it does,” said Stiles, his voice taking that uncomfortably upbeat tone it did when he was trying to cover up awkwardness. “You know what we’ll be doing.” A second of silence passed through the room.

“How many pack nights have you had?” asked Kira, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear before resting her hands on her stomach again.

“This will be number four I think,” Scott thought aloud.

“We only really became a pack over the summer,” Stiles explained, turning to face Kira.

“Yeah,” Scott affirmed. “Before that it was just me, Stiles and Allison.”

“Until my ex boyfriend turned into a lizard and went on a homicidal rampage,” Lydia piped up from the other armchair, watching the look of sheer confusion spread across Kira’s face. She remembered having that look. Kira would get used to the bizarre factors that came with their friendship soon enough.

“Then we got Lydia too,” Stiles added, pointing in Lydia’s direction. She flashed Kira a theatrically charming smile and waved. Kira laughed.

“So I’m guessing you guys have some pretty interesting stories to tell,” she said, smiling at the oddity of the moment.

“Boy, do we,” Stiles replied, a harsh soundless laugh escaping from his throat. Scott looked at all of them from the chair and smiled.

“I think we know what we’re doing,” he stated, and then they launched into telling Kira their stories.

The night went on as tales and laughter were passed between them, and it was late when they all went to bed. There hadn’t been so much laughter shared between them as a group since before Allison died, and tonight felt like a definitive step in them all moving forward together. Scott remarked on it as he and Stiles got ready for bed, and for the first time in a very long while, the thought of going to sleep didn’t make Stiles feel at all anxious. Lydia felt it too as she and Kira settled down in Isaac’s old room. She felt like she could feel the world moving, all of them moving with it, towards the future and out of this emotional rut that grief had sucked them all into. As she got comfortable against the pillow, the last though before she closed her eyes was not of Allison, but a wish for more days and nights like this one.

 

 


	13. Chapter 13

Contentment buzzed in the air of the McCall’s kitchen as the morning sunlight shone through the windows, the sweet aroma of pancakes filling the room. Rather than have everyone eat cold pizza for breakfast, Scott decided he would cook pancakes for them. They’d all had such a good night and Scott wanted to continue making their stay as great as he could. Lydia was sat on one of the stools at the kitchen island, truly appreciating what a great cook her friend was as she placed her fork loaded with fluffy pancake into her mouth.

“I hate to break it to you Stiles,” she said, leaning slightly towards where he sat on the stool next to her. “But Scott makes a much better breakfast than you do.”

“Oh yeah?” He replied, his mouth half full and his eyebrows raised. Just as Lydia was about to respond she noticed Scott approaching them with his own plate of pancakes.

“That’s because I can do more than just throw stuff in a pan and hope for the best,” said Scott as he placed his plate down on the counter, practically leaning on Stiles.

“Aw man,” exclaimed Stiles, tilting his head back and laughing. “Why’d you have to go and tell them my secret?”

“He didn’t have to,” Lydia stated, twisting towards them and resting her arm on the counter next to her almost empty plate. “I watched you cook, remember.”

“Eh,” said Stiles dismissively, waving a hand in the air. “It’s not a competition.” Although a smug look from Scott told Lydia that it definitely was.

“But at least Scott didn’t drink apple juice from the carton while cooking in front of guests,” Lydia argued, a guilty look forming on Stiles’ face and an incredulous one on Scott’s.

“Dude,” Scott exclaimed, screwing his face up at his best friend, who seemed completely outraged over his disgruntled reaction.

“Hey,” said Stiles defensively, pointing his finger at Scott, who had backed a few inches away from the table, a fork with a piece of pancake skewered on it in his hand. “Don’t act like you don’t do it too, I know you do.”

“Yeah,” Scott admitted, popping the fork into his mouth and biting off the chunk of pancake, continuing to talk after he’d swallowed it. “But not in front of guests.” Lydia laughed as one more layer of Stiles’ argument was stripped away.

“In my defence,” Stiles began, and Lydia could already feel her eyes getting into roll position. She quickly glanced over to her left at Kira, who had been remarkably quiet, but she appeared to be as sucked in by the guys’ playful arguing as Lydia was. She noticed that Kira never took her eyes off Scott, smiling as she absentmindedly put forkfuls of pancake into her mouth.

“I was exhausted and starving, I wasn’t thinking about what I was doing,” Stiles explained, and Lydia had to admit that he was right. He’d had an awful night and wasn’t in much of a state to do anything. However, if he ever did anything like that in her presence again when his health wasn’t dwindling, she wouldn’t be so quick to forget it.

“Then what’s your excuse for all the other times,” jested Scott, laughing as he affectionately grabbed Stiles’ shoulder.

“Shut up dude,” he replied, laughing too, shaking Scott’s hand off his shoulder before they all returned to eating. Scott had done Lydia’s and Kira’s first so they were almost done, and Stiles had practically inhaled his, but they still had to wait for Scott, who had only just brought his plate over.

Lydia and Kira started to talk quietly as Scott finished eating his breakfast, stacking the empty plates on top of each other so it was easier for Scott to carry them all over to the sink once everyone was done. When Scott was halfway through his pancakes, he glanced at his phone, which Lydia caught out of the corner of her eye as Scott suddenly straightened up, as if he was about to try and gain all of their attentions.

“Oh by the way guys,” said Scott, the loudness of his voice causing everyone to look towards him. “Malia is coming over in like twenty minutes.” Lydia hadn’t seen Malia since they’d found her in the woods, and she’d managed to work out that Malia was Peter Hale’s daughter. She wondered if anyone else knew, and also how Malia was coping adjusting to living as a human again. From what Scott had said, she wasn’t too pleased with it.

“Oh,” said Lydia, straightening her back before leaning against the counter so she was closer to Scott. “How is she?”

“She’s fine,” Scott replied, cutting up the last half a pancake on his plate. “She said that she wants us to pick up her training, and now that everyone’s okay,” Scott tilted his head towards Stiles. “I told her to come over.”

“Oh, ok,” Lydia responded, nodding her head. She knew Scott had told Malia that he needed some time to help his pack through their loss, and that as soon as things were back on track he’d be in touch.

“Well we won’t be in your way,” said Kira from the opposite side of the kitchen island. Lydia noticed a look of disappointment shoot through Scott’s eyes, their focus fixed on Kira.

“Oh no, you don’t have to leave,” he insisted, disappointment and almost desperation obvious in his voice. Observing the budding romance between Scott and Kira gave Lydia a warm feeling in her stomach. It was nice to see something positive happening. Lydia swore she could see a slight flush creep into Kira’s cheeks.

“No,” Kira started to clarify, hints of a compressed giggle lingering in her voice. “Lydia and I are going shopping.”

“Oh,” said Scott, blinking and shifting on the spot as he flashed them a winning smile to cover up any potential awkwardness. “That’s great.”

 It was unsaid knowledge that Lydia hadn’t engaged in any of her hobbies apart from academic research since Allison had died, especially things that she used to do with Allison, like shopping. Scott’s happy smile and wide, optimistic eyes would have seemed out of place to anyone who didn’t know.  Stiles even shot Lydia a pleased look, silently letting her know that he was happy she was finally out living her life again, just like they had discussed that night on the hood of the Jeep. The supportive looks from all of them made Lydia’s heart swell.

They silently waited until Scott ate the last bit of pancake on his plate, sliding the empty plate down the table to the pile in front of Lydia when he was done. Scott moved around the island and tried to stand in between Lydia and Stiles to grab the plates, but Stiles stuck out his arm and blocked him.

“Hey man, don’t worry about those,” he said to Scott as he slid off the stool and grabbed the pile of plates. “I’ll do the dishes.”

“You sure?” Scott replied, surprise evident in his voice. Lydia felt herself unable to stop smiling over the small gesture. Scott had been such a great host to them all, it was nice seeing someone else do his work for him. Lydia would have offered herself if she and Kira weren’t leaving so soon.

“Yeah,” Stiles reassured him, motioning with his head for Scott to shift out of the way so he could take the plates to the sink. “Don’t worry about it.”

Scott clapped him gently on the back by way of a thank you as he passed, making his way over to the sink. Lydia couldn’t seem to not watch Stiles as he put the dishes on the side and started running the faucet, remembering how a few weeks ago he could barely stand up without getting light headed. It was nice to see the change, to know that hopefully he wouldn’t go back there. She truly no longer felt like she had to constantly worry about him, even though she knew a part of her always would, especially after what she watched him go through, but for now that part could take a break because everything seemed fine.

As Stiles washed the dishes for Scott, Kira and Lydia went upstairs to grab their stuff. Kira needed to go back home and grab some cash from her parents before they set off, and her mom was running errands today while her dad was grading essays at school so she wanted to catch her mom before she left. She’d told Lydia this yesterday when she asked why they needed to leave by a certain time. Lydia waited in the living room while Scott and Kira wrapped their remaining pizza slices in foil wrap, looking at her bag and Kira’s as they sat on the couch and chair.

Scott and Kira came back in, Kira shoving the pizza in her bag and then handing Lydia her slices to do the same while Scott went and answered the knock on the door. Malia was here. Lydia heard Scott’s voice greet Malia at the door, and then the sounds of the two of them making their way into the living room.

“Hey,” said Malia as she looked around the room at Kira and Lydia, offering a small awkward wave. Lydia took in the sight of her. She looked slightly different to when they’d found her in the woods. Her hair was no longer matted and fell in bouncy waves past her shoulders and her skin was tanned, rather than streaked with dirt. She was wearing a white t shirt and jeans. Lydia thought the look suited her. Scott placed a hand on her shoulder and ushered her further into the room.

“Malia, you remember Lydia, right?” said Scott, pointing to her. Malia nodded slightly.

“Yeah,” she replied, blinking as she looked at her.

“Hey,” said Lydia, waving as she zipped up her bag.

“And this is Kira,” Scott continued, directing Malia’s attention to Kira, who was grabbing her bag off the armchair.

“Hi,” Kira replied, her voice sounding slightly nervous as she waved at Malia and flashed her a wide smile. Lydia’s attention moved back from Kira to Malia, until a voice from the kitchen pulled it in another direction.

“Hey dude,” Stiles called as he walked into the living room from the kitchen, the sleeves of his dark hoodie rolled up to his elbows and clusters of bubbles dripping off his hands. “I’m done with the dishes so I’m just going to leave them,” he stopped when his eyes found Malia, his mouth hanging open for a second before he continued speaking, like he had to take a moment to register that she was there and not something he thought he’d imagined. “On the drainer. Hey.”

“And I’m sure you remember Stiles,” said Scott, turning towards Malia. Stiles felt heat start to creep up the back of his neck as everyone in the room’s eyes suddenly fell on him, memories of the last time he’d seen Malia filling his mind. He wiped his hands on his jeans.

“Of course,” replied Malia, her eyes meeting his briefly. She smiled at him. “We got to know each other pretty well at Eichen.” The heat that crept up the back of Stiles’ neck had now spread to his cheeks. It occurred to him then that he hadn’t told anyone just _how_ well they’d got to know each other while they were in Eichen House. God, he hoped no one could tell he was blushing.

“So,” he said, much louder than necessary, shoving his still wet hands into his pockets so no one would notice his fingers starting to twitch. “It’s good to see you.”

“You too,” Malia responded, nodding slightly and smiling a little wider at him. He was starting to feel too warm in his hoodie, trying to ignore the fact that Kira, Scott and Lydia were all still staring at him. “I’m glad that you’re um….”

“Spirit free, yeah me too,” he finished her sentence for her, his words coming out too fast. This was starting to be way more awkward than it needed to be. If only the others would quit staring. Stiles knew at least one of them will have noticed he was acting odd. “It’s been nearly a month now.” He started shifting on the spot, trying to get some of the energy that had burst to life inside him to dissipate.

“Which reminds me,” stated Malia, turning away from Stiles and towards Scott. “Why I’m here.” Stiles felt half of the awkward tension flood from his body the second everyone’s attention was diverted.

“Yeah,” replied Scott attentively, turning towards Malia. Stiles risked a glance up at everyone else to see where they were focusing. Scott and Malia were talking to each other and Kira was rooting around in her bag for something, but Lydia was still looking at Stiles, and shooting him a very suspicious glare. Really? Stiles mentally fumed. Of all the people to pick up that he was acting a little awkwardly around Malia, it had to be Lydia. It had to be the girl he had feelings for. Heat and discomfort shot through him as he hoped that she hadn’t figured out _why_ he was acting so strangely. He quickly pulled his eyes away from Lydia and towards the floor, a part of him hoping that it was about to open up and swallow him.

“I’m just,” he said quietly, pointing back towards the kitchen. “I’m just gonna go back and finish the dishes,” He announced, and then promptly left the room, resisting the urge to smack himself in the head repeatedly for being such an idiot.

Lydia remained staring incredulously at the spot where Stiles had been standing, wondering why the hell he started acting so weird when he saw Malia. What had happened between the two of them at Eichen House to make him seem so awkward the next time they saw each other, thought Lydia. She wondered if he knew that she was Peter’s daughter too. She shook the thoughts away but told herself not to forget about it, turning her attention back to Scott and Malia.

“The full moon is approaching,” Malia stated. “I don’t want to do it like last time.”

“What do you mean?” asked Scott.

“I don’t want to do it at the school anymore,” Malia explained, folding her arms across her chest. “Last time was too risky.”

Lydia could see the wheels turning in Scott’s mind for a secluded place for Malia to get through the full moon without hurting anyone that wasn’t anywhere that someone would notice. A thought crossed her mind. She had just the place for them.

“I think I might be able to help you,” she interjected, gaining their attention. “My grandmother’s lake house, it’s pretty much empty,” she explained, taking in the hopeful expressions that started to develop on their faces. “You can use the basement, I’ll just tell my mom I want to have a sleepover there or something and get the keys for you.”

“Are you sure Lydia?” asked Scott.

“Yeah,” she replied, nodding. “It’s not a problem.”

“Great,” said Malia, flashing Lydia a smile.

“So I’ll ask my mom for the keys and then give them to you,” Lydia told Scott. “How soon is the full moon?”

“Three days,” Malia answered. The short notice of the date made Lydia’s enthusiasm dim, especially given what date it was so close to, but she knew she could get the key to Scott in time. Since Allison, her mom didn’t ask many questions when Lydia said that she wanted something.

“Okay,” Lydia responded, and then the three of them solidified their plan for the full moon before Kira and Lydia left for their shopping trip.

After the girls left, it was just Scott, Stiles and Malia. Scott shouted into the kitchen for Stiles to join them upstairs in his room once he’d finished with the dishes, and when he got up there he found Malia sat comfortably on Scott’s bed and Scott standing to the right of the door near the closet.

“So,” began Malia, clasping her hands together where they sat in her lap. “Should we get this lesson started?”

“You don’t mind that he’s here, do you?” asked Scott, jabbing his thumb at Stiles. Malia shook her head.

“Of course not,” she replied, turning her attention from Scott to Stiles. “I need to ask him why he was being so weird with me anyway.” Stiles felt all of the discomfort from downstairs bubble back to the surface.

“Weird?” he stammered, his eyes darting around the room as he tried not to look uncomfortable. “I wasn’t being weird.”

“You kinda were dude,” Scott told him, shooting him a puzzled and concerned look. He tried to ignore it.

“Like you’re being weird right now,” added Malia bluntly. Stiles felt his body flush with heat as he looked her directly in the eyes. It suddenly occurred to him that Scott would be able to hear his heartbeat increasing, which only made the awkwardness of this moment worse. Now would be a great time for the floor to collapse and have him fall right through it.

 “Look,” said Malia firmly, pinning Stiles in place with her eyes. The floor caving in was starting to sound more appealing by the second as the awkward tension itched over his skin.  “If what we did is going to make this uncomfortable for you then you don’t have to stay here.”

Stiles swallowed as he realised what she’d just said, and that Scott was standing there right next to them and giving them an incredibly confused look. His cheeks were suddenly on fire.

“What you...?” Scott started to ask before pausing, his mouth hanging open and his eyes narrowing at the pair of them as he tried to figure out what they were talking about.

“No,” blurted Stiles, waving his hands in front of him as more words continued to tumble from his mouth. “ No, It’s totally not a problem. Like, it doesn’t make this weird for me, at all, it’s totally fine.” About halfway through his rambling he realised that he could no longer pretend this conversation wasn’t a raging uncomfortable mess and gave up on trying to look nonchalant.

“Then why were you acting so odd downstairs?” asked Malia, folding her arms across her chest.

“Hang on,” continued Scott confusedly, talking more to himself than he was to Stiles and Malia. “What you did?”

“I didn’t mean be all awkward like that,” Stiles explained. He was shuffling on the spot and grabbing the back of his neck with one hand, cringing at his own idiocy. “It just kinda happens sometimes.”

“Okay,” Malia said softly, nodding her head. “So it has nothing to with the fact that we-”

“Oh my god,” Scott exclaimed loudly, causing both Stiles and Malia to whip their heads in his direction. Shock and surprise were plastered all over his face, and his mouth was opening and closing like a fish, like he was struggling to get his words out.

“You...you guys didn’t,” stammered Scott, blinking as his eyes flitted from Stiles to Malia and back again, the hand he was pointing at them with following the same pattern. On top of the fact that his face now probably resembled an overly ripe tomato, the thin, guilty wince of a smile that Stiles gave Scott as he averted his eyes told him the answer.

“What?” Scott burst out, his face screwed up in shock and confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I thought you said it wasn’t that big a deal,” argued Malia, her voice stern.

“It isn’t,” Stiles replied, a little louder and more heated than he’d intended, but he was more focused on Scott in that moment, and the discomfort pulsing through his entire body.

“Then why are both of you being so weird?” Malia asked, growing irritation evident in her voice. Stiles winced. This whole conversation needed to disappear, or the floor needed to finally come through for him and collapse.

“It’s a human thing, don’t worry about it,” he tried to reassure her, taking a breath before he turned to Scott.

“I was kind of a little too busy being possessed, dude,” he explained, a slightly harsh hint to his voice, before letting out another deep breath and putting his back to both of them, pushing away the uncomfortable energy. “Now,” he said loudly, turning around again and clasping his hands together with such momentum that it hurt. “Should we start this lesson?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Malia, her bored tone indicating her desperation to move on from this conversation and get to why she came here in the first place. As Stiles went to move to the other side of the room, Scott came up behind him.

“We are talking about this later,” he whispered. Stiles could tell that Scott was surprised and possibly upset that he hadn’t mentioned this before. After all, they were best friends, they told each other everything, or were supposed to.

“As long as you shut up about it now,” Stiles whispered back, embarrassment still clear in his voice. They exchanged a look that let Stiles know that Scott was over the shock of the revelation, but he wasn’t going to drop it.

“You two are ridiculous,” Malia groaned from the bed, rolling her eyes and shaking her head at the pair of them. Scott headed over to her, finally ready to start their lesson.

Stiles hung back as he watched Scott try to teach Malia how to trigger her claws, glad that the awkwardness of their conversation had passed. She didn’t manage to do it before she went home, but the two of them talked about what had happened earlier without Scott around, and that made everything seem much less uncomfortable between them. He actually found talking to her incredibly refreshing. She was direct and to the point when no one else was, and after she left he realised that he hadn’t thought about everything that had happened with the Nogitsune the whole time she was there. He had no need to. She hadn’t been affected by its destruction at all, and that simple fact was like a breath of fresh air after wading through smoke for weeks.

 


	14. Chapter 14

Lydia hugged her knees closer to her chest, staring at the picture sat in front of her on her bed. It was one from her Instagram of her and Allison that she’d had printed out and framed, and she’d been thinking about where she was going to put it for the last two hours. The sky outside was pitch black and the night was cloudy, so none of the stars shone through her window. It felt fitting considering what day it was.

She looked at her clock. It was almost eleven and she was still no closer on deciding where to put the photograph, so she left it on her bed and walked over to her nightstand, grabbing her phone. Fatigue pulled at every muscle in her body and her eyes felt raw from all the crying she’d done today and the lack of sleep she’d had the night before, but she pushed past it and hit dial.

“I was wondering when you would call,” Stiles’ voice said as soon as he picked up. Lydia started to slowly pace around her room.

“You knew,” she said breathily, like the fact surprised her when it really shouldn’t have. It was exactly one month since Allison had died today, and the day was running out of hours.

“Of course I did,” he replied, his voice heavy with emotion. It sounded the way Lydia felt. “Now how long are you going to take to get ready? I’m parked outside.”

“You,” she gasped, shock that he was waiting outside rippling through her. Her heart almost burst with the knowledge that he knew she would want to go out tonight hand was already waiting for her. She wondered how long he’d been out there. Lydia shook the initial surprise away, remembering that he’d asked her a question. “Five minutes.”

“Cool,” he replied. “See you then.” And then hung up. Lydia put the phone down on the bed with a deep sigh as she started to get ready.

Stiles drummed his fingers on the steering wheel of the Jeep as he waited for Lydia to arrive, his head tilted back so his eyes were on the roof. He felt exhausted. Not the kind of exhausted you felt after going days without sleep, he was way too familiar with that kind of exhaustion to mistake this feeling for that. This was the kind of exhausted that settled in your chest and locked around you, making every movement difficult, the kind that seeped into your bones. He’d always known that today would be a struggle for him, for all of them, but he couldn’t let Lydia down, not right now. Even if seeing her upset over Allison was only going to make him feel worse.

Lydia soon emerged at the end of the driveway, granting him freedom from being left alone with his thoughts. Not that being with her was a better alternative. He still felt guilty and horrible, but it was better to feel awful and help someone than to feel awful alone.

“So where are we going tonight?” he asked Lydia as she climbed in the passenger seat. She glanced over at him as she buckled her seatbelt, meeting his eyes briefly. He seemed more relaxed than he had at school. They’d all been acting off today; Stiles had been irritable, Scott had been subdued, and she had been a combination of the two.

“I don’t know,” she admitted, her voice wavering as distress crashed like waves in her chest. She’d been like this all day, uncertain and indecisive about everything. She took a deep breath, grounding herself. “I feel like we should go somewhere that means something, but I don’t know where.”

“The woods again?” Stiles suggested. Lydia shook her head.

“I don’t know,” she said again, licking her lips. “Feels too impersonal.”

“Her old place?”

“Maybe,” she replied, still fraught with uncertainty. Everywhere felt like it wasn’t enough, like Allison deserved better, but soon they would be running out of places to think of. “But then we’d just be sat outside an apartment building.”

Stiles watched Lydia as she bit her lip, her wide eyes starting to brim with tears. He desperately wanted to take her hand and tell her that everything was going to be okay, but he didn’t. He just sat and felt his heart slowly shatter, dark tendrils of guilt wrapping around his mind and reminding him that he was part of the reason she was in this state.

“How about we just drive around,” he suggested, trying to fight back against the hurricane of self hatred building up inside him. “And you tell me if you want to stop somewhere.”

“Okay,” Lydia agreed, wrapping her arms around herself as the Jeep’s engine spluttered to life.

“Your flowers were nice, by the way,” said Stiles after they’d been driving for about three minutes in total silence. Lydia was so zoned out, staring dazedly out of the window at the houses and street lamps passing by, that it took her a second to register what he’d said.

“Thank you,” she whispered, still keeping her eyes out of the window. “They were pink alstroemerias and mixed zinnias.” she spoke almost dreamily, like the words were coming out of her mouth before she could even think them.

“What?” asked Stiles, who had absolutely no idea what she’d just said. She stopped looking out of the window and turned her head towards him, watching him narrow his eyes in confusion.

“Alstroemerias are symbolic of friendship,” explained Lydia, glancing down at her lap. “And mixed zinnias symbolise thinking of an absent friend.”

“That’s much deeper than the ones we put there,” said Stiles, surprised by how beautifully thoughtful it was. He bet that she’d planned it all in advance and had the bouquet custom ordered, which showed much more dedication than himself and Scott, who had gone to the florists on their way to the cemetery. “Scott bought her favourites and I just grabbed the biggest bouquet I could afford.”

He felt awful as soon as the words were out of his mouth, but money-wise things were tough. His dad was struggling with the bills for the MRI and Eichen House, and even all the overtime he was putting in wasn’t helping. Stiles hated seeing his dad work so hard to pay off bills they’d acquired because of him, it just added another thing to the list of reasons to feel guilty.

“You went to her grave,” said Lydia, pleasant surprise blossoming in her chest. She smiled at him, delighted that he finally felt ready to go, and had gone. He deserved to be a part of that process as much as the others, even if he didn’t feel like he did.

“Yeah, this evening,” Stiles replied, a shakiness to his voice that told Lydia he couldn’t quite believe it himself. “Did you go right after school?”

“Yeah,” she answered. She’d wanted to get it done early so she could have the rest of the day to silently process everything, so she’d picked up her bouquet after school and driven straight to the cemetery. She stayed there for an hour, crying her eyes out as she sat at the graveside.

“We we were gonna go right after too but Scott wanted to take a nap,” Stiles continued, reminding Lydia of the night she and Scott had had.

“Yeah he had his work cut out for him last night,” she replied. Last night she and Scott had stayed with Malia at her grandmother’s lake house to help her through the full moon. Scott was downstairs in the basement with Malia while Lydia tried to sleep upstairs. She didn’t sleep the entire time they were there, not because of the noise, but because of what day would start when the sun rose.

“You were there too right?” asked Stiles. He’d given Scott the chains to keep Malia secure with, but hadn’t gone down to the lake house himself. He didn’t feel like spending last night around anyone.

“Yeah,” Lydia answered. “So my mom wouldn’t get suspicious.”

“Did you sleep?”

“No,” she said flatly. “I tried, but I couldn’t.” Lydia didn’t think any of them slept well last night. In the morning, after chugging a large amount of coffee, Lydia went down to the basement and found Scott and Malia both sleeping. Malia was asleep against the wall and Scott was sprawled out on the floor. She’d told him to miss first period and give the keys to the lake house back to her at school.

“But you went to the grave,” she said gently, changing the subject back to Stiles. “That’s good.” He sighed.

“I still couldn’t do it by myself,” he countered, an ugly flatness to his voice. For a second, Lydia felt frustrated with him. This was an important step for him, and he was downplaying its importance just because it hadn’t been perfect. Typical.

“That doesn’t matter,” she replied fiercely, her voice raising a pitch. “You went.”

Stiles gave her a thin smile, briefly taking his eyes off the road to look at her. He hoped that she couldn’t see how much her kindness and support was killing him.

He was gripping the steering wheel hard, trying to concentrate on the feeling of its sturdiness and not how his insides felt like they were being shredded apart. It never ended, this gut-wrenching sense of unworthiness, especially regarding Lydia. She was so gentle and encouraging, even while struggling herself. He honestly should’ve just stayed away from her, but she wanted his support and he was completely powerless to refuse. His heart made all the decisions and then his head made him live to regret it, but he knew that his heart would never surrender control.

“Do you feel like this month has both dragged on forever and gone so fast all at once,” he thought aloud, contemplating how conflicting everything had felt since it all happened.

“Yeah,” Lydia replied, blinking as she registered the sudden interruption of silence. She was tired. All of the street lights were staring to blur together. “I can’t believe it’s been a month already since it happened, but at the same time it feels like much longer.”

Time right now felt so abstract to Lydia. On the more painful days, minutes felt like hours, but somehow they days had managed to fly by. She still felt like it had happened yesterday sometimes, but then on the good days, she realised that it wasn’t, and that time had passed. It was so surreal that a whole month had passed. Lydia’s thoughts then drifted to Stiles and how he was coping with the day. She had to ask him.

“How do you feel?” she said, watching him startle slightly as her words reached him. “About today.”

“How I expected to feel,” he replied, his voice completely toneless. “Like absolute crap.”

“As long as you know that you have as much right to grieve her as the rest of us,” she continued, determined to not let him forget it.

“I know,” he said quietly.

“Good,” Lydia smiled thinly, hoping that he wasn’t lying.

“What about you?” Stiles then asked. “How do you feel?”

“Tired mostly,” Lydia replied automatically. She’d been expecting him to ask her and had her answer prepared, despite the fact that it was only the tip of the iceberg of how she felt. “Last night was the first night in a while where I didn’t get any sleep.”

“Maybe I should take you back home so you can try and sleep,” Stiles responded, tenderness to his voice that warmed Lydia’s heart. He was always so attentive with her, so caring. She just wished he’d apply that same response to himself.

“No,” she replied, shaking her head. She was so tired that her eyes were aching, but she didn’t want to go home. She didn’t want to be alone. “I’ll be fine.”

“You sure?” asked Stiles.

“Yeah,” Lydia confirmed.

As they drifted through the empty streets of Beacon Hills, Lydia found herself thinking of all the places she’d gone with Allison. All of the memories that would be just that, all of the future moments she would never get to have with her best friend, the person who had brought her to life. It seemed so unbelievably cruel that she’d just been snatched away from them like that. Lydia didn’t even notice when the first tears started to roll down her cheeks, their wet heat barely registering. It wasn’t until she could no longer suppress the sobs rippling their way up her throat that she gave in completely.

“Hey,” said Stiles tenderly as soon as he heard her sobbing, pulling the Jeep over on the sidewalk of an empty street.

“Sorry,” she spluttered, wiping her face as she shook her head. “I thought I’d done all the crying I was going to do today, apparently not.”

Stiles felt completely hollow as he watched her try and force back tears, like hooks had ripped all of the organs from his body and left nothing but a shell. She’d been so destroyed by Allison’s death, and for that he would never forgive himself.

“It’s okay,” he soothed, touching her arm. She let out a shaky breath as she turned to meet his eyes, so pained as they looked at her. “Today was always going to be tough.”

“I know,” she breathed.

“And don’t ever apologise for crying in front of me,” he continued, squeezing her arm gently. “You don’t need to.”

“I just,” she tried to speak, but stopped as her breath got caught on the lump in her throat. “I never expected this to happen, you know, after everything we’ve been through. We’ve always been fine.”

“Yeah, I didn’t expect it to happen either,” he sighed, pain and guilt twisting together in his voice.

“And it’s just so hard,” she continued, sucking in shallow breaths.

“I know.”

Lydia steadied her breathing, wiping the remaining streaks of wetness from her cheeks. “You can start driving again. I’m fine.”

Stiles nodded, starting up the jeep again. He noticed Lydia shifting in the passenger seat out of the corner of his eyes, but he refused to glance over at her. He knew it would undo him completely. He drove around, never taking his eyes off the road, doing laps of the town over and over again because it was something to focus on other than the raging thoughts in his head.

It was too silent. The roads were completely dead, and Lydia hadn’t moved in the past ten minutes.

“Lydia,” Stiles said quietly, getting no response. He pulled over and looked at her properly. She was fast asleep, her head resting against the window supported by her hand.

“Great,” he muttered sarcastically. There was no way he could take her back to hers, she wouldn’t make it in the door. Instead he drove back to his house.

“Hey, it’s just me, alright,” he said gently as she stirred while he was undoing her seatbelt. “It’s just Stiles.” She mumbled incomprehensibly as he lifted her from the car and carried her over to the porch after locking the Jeep. He tried to get the front door key in as he held her but couldn’t.

“Just stand up for a minute and then you can go back to sleep,” he told her as he slipped the key in the door. She let out a sleepy moan of protest as she leant into his side. “I promise.”

“Stiles,” she said hazily, her body swaying as she struggled to stay upright. Once Stiles had the door unlocked he lifted her up again.

“Yeah,” he responded, but she went silent again. He carried her inside, realising that trying to get her upstairs was going to be an issue. He didn’t think he’d be able to carry her up, and definitely didn’t want to risk dropping her. Instead he set her down so she was leaning against the wall and wrapped his arm around her, guiding her up the stairs one leg at a time.

“Lyds,” he whispered when he was about halfway up the stairs, his back aching from having to bend down and lift each of her legs individually. “I know you’re asleep but could you please help me out a little bit here.”

Eventually he made it up, grimacing as he lifted her up again from the ache ripping through his back. He reached his room, slowly kicking the door open before moving inside and depositing Lydia on top of the bed.

“There you go,” he said quietly after he set her down. “Now you can sleep all you want.” A small noise emitted from her throat as she rolled over, the hair from her ponytail spilling across her face.

He leaned over the bed and took off her shoes, pulling the duvet so that at least some of it covered her. He then grabbed the pillow that her head wasn’t on and dropped it on the floor. She was right in the middle of the bed, there was no way he was fitting on it.

Stiles took a moment to look at Lydia in the darkness. She looked so comfortable, so peaceful, finally away from all the pain and heartache that today had brought her. He knew he wasn’t going to get that escape tonight, especially after their drive.

“Night Lyds,” he whispered, turning away from the bed and settling down on the floor. He kicked off his shoes, folding his hands behind his head as he sighed so heavily that his entire body felt it. Forceful waves of regret and exhaustion crashed into him as he lay staring at the ceiling. It was torture seeing Lydia like this so much, knowing how strongly she felt their loss and constantly feeling responsible for it. He closed his eyes, knowing he wasn’t going to sleep, hoping that things got better for her soon.


	15. Chapter 15

Excitement was bursting through Scott’s bedroom as Malia learned to trigger her claws for the first time. They were all smiling and laughing, Stiles moving backwards onto the bed when she nearly caught his face with them. Malia laughed jovially, utter disbelief that she’d managed to do it plastered on her face.

“That was great,” Stiles exclaimed once the atmosphere had calmed down a little, moving back to the edge of the bed when he knew there was no longer a scratch risk.

“Yeah,” Scott agreed. “You’ll totally be ready for school soon. When did they say you could start?” Malia had been for a tour round the high school today and met up with Stiles and Scott afterwards. This was their third meet up since the disastrously awkward conversation about what had happened between the two of them at Eichen House, and Stiles found that he enjoyed watching her progress, so he’d been tagging along. At their previous meet up, Malia had mentioned that her dad was thinking about getting her enrolled in school and she wanted their advice.

“They said it might be too late in the semester to start full time,” Malia explained, shoving her hands into her jeans pockets. “But they can have me sit in a few classes now, with a full time start next semester.”

“That’s fantastic,” said Stiles, mirroring Malia’s wide smile. It was nice seeing good things happen around here and not having everything laced with an undertone of grief.

“Now we’ve just got to get you ready for high school,” added Scott.

“I could teach her,” Stiles suggested before he even realised the words had come out of his mouth. He stood up, Scott’s and Malia’s attention turning towards him.

“It makes sense,” he elaborated when he noticed Scott giving him a surprised look, waving his arms around as he talked. “She has a werewolf to teach her all the werewolf stuff, why not have a human teach her the human stuff.” Scott gave it a nod of consideration.

“I’d be happy for him to teach me,” added Malia, her focus flitting between the two of them.

“So it’s settled then,” said Stiles, looking over at Malia. She met his eyes, smiled and nodded.

“Sure,” she agreed. “When do we start?”

“Whenever, I guess,” he answered, scratching the back of his neck. “We could start right now if you wanted to.”

“Um, no, I better get going,” Malia replied, shaking her head as she moved to grab her bag off Scott’s bed. Stiles went and stood beside Scott. Malia turned to him. “But how about I come over tomorrow when you get out of school?”

“Sounds great,” he answered, nodding his head in agreement as he folded his arms across his chest. Malia slipped her bag over her shoulder, pulling some trapped bits of hair out from under the thin strap.

“Ok,” she said as she stopped in Scott’s bedroom doorway. “So I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You sure will,” Stiles grinned back at her.

“Thanks guys.”

“No problem,” said Stiles and Scott at the same time as Malia slipped out of the room and down the stairs, letting herself out.

A second passed before Scott and Stiles dispersed from where they were stood, Scott moving over to the other side of the room where he kicked some clothes on his bedroom floor into a neat pile and Stiles looking out of the bedroom window. He thought about what he’d agreed to do,  considering it strange that he’d agreed to teach someone how to be human again when he was questioning everything that meant. He wondered if it was too much, considering he was also supporting Lydia, but maybe he needed a break from the exhausting guilt that followed whenever they talked. Maybe this could be a good thing, maybe helping Malia learn how to be human would help him feel human again too.

He broke away from his thoughts, shaking them from the forefront of his concentration as he turned away from the window. He found Scott stretched out on his bed, aiming a disconcertingly smiley expression at him.

“Dude,” said Stiles, narrowing his eyes at Scott. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“You two seem to have clicked very well,” Scott answered, still smiling. Scott wasn’t the only one who had noticed. Stiles had noticed that Malia tended to gravitate towards him rather than Scott when they weren’t trying to teach her something. He’d noticed how easy he found it to talk to her, how quiet the chaos in his head was when they spoke.

“I’m just trying to help her,” he told Scott, an almost defensive tone to his voice. He started pacing in front of the bed, Scott following him with his eyes.

“I wasn’t insinuating anything,” Scott replied slowly, shooting Stiles a mildly concerned look. “And anyway, aren’t you also helping Lydia?”

“Yeah,” Stiles replied, sighing slightly. “But it’s not the same.” He shoved his hands in the pockets of his hoodie, pushing them against it until the material stretched as far as it would go.

“What do you mean?” asked Scott, his brow furrowed in confusion. The look sent a small streak of discomfort shooting through Stiles’ chest. He didn’t want to have to explain the conflicting mess of thoughts and feelings that he had about Lydia to Scott.

“Things with Lydia are just different,” he explained curtly, irritation simmering inside him as he realised his quick tone would only make Scott even more suspicious. As if on cue, Scott’s confused expression increased.

“Different how?” he asked, moving so that he was now sat on the end of the bed, his elbows resting on his thighs. “Because you like her”?

“No,” Stiles replied immediately, shaking his head right after. “Well, yes,” he corrected himself, letting out a frustrated huff. “But that’s not the only reason.”

“Then what are the other reasons?” asked Scott. The inevitable question making the irritation in Stiles’ chest boil over. Angry heat flushed his body and his heartbeat started to increase, so he knew there was no getting out of this now as Scott could hear it. Why did he have to have a best friend who could hear heartbeats and smell emotions? He could see the look of concern on Scott’s face progress into full blown worry as the pause Stiles was taking to answer his question grew.

A realisation came to him then. He was so angry because he didn’t want to have to admit it out loud, as if not saying it meant that it wasn’t a problem. But it was, he knew it was, and Scott would know it was too, but he just didn’t want to face admitting it. Stiles sighed, surrendering to the inevitable.

“Because I feel like I have to,” he confessed, watching Scott’s face for changes in expression as uncomfortable heat spread in his chest and face. He clenched his fists in his pockets, continuing to explain. “I feel compelled to do it. Even though helping her makes me feel awful it’s like I’m incapable of not helping her.”

“Hang on,” said Scott, his eyes narrowed in confusion. “Why does helping her make you feel awful?” Stiles took a deep breath, riding another unpleasant wave of emotion as he thought of how to describe the tormenting situation he was in.

“Because every time she’s grieving or upset and she comes to me I’m reminded that it’s my fault that she feels that way in the first place,” he explained, his voice cracking slightly as the words fell out of his mouth. He removed his hands from his pockets, unable to keep them still as he admitted everything. “And I can’t just not help her Scott. I can’t do it.”

“Why can’t you?” Scott countered.

“Because it’s _Lydia_ ,” Stiles told him, closing his eyes as a desperate ache ripped through his chest. “And despite all the guilt and the messed up crap I feel when I’m with her I just can’t stop.” his voice was strained as he spoke to Scott, the tiring relentlessness from the war between his heart and his head bubbling up his throat and into his words. “It’s like she’s trying to drown me and pull me ashore at the same time.”

“That’s kinda-” Scott started to say, tentative concern making him slow his words, but Stiles cut him off.

“Fucked up,” he finished for Scott, tensing his jaw. “Yeah, I know. But there’s nothing I can do about it.” Stiles let out shallow breaths as Scott watched his movements with a focused gaze. It was clear Scott was deeply concerned for him now, and all fairness it was understandable. This was a messed up situation, on his part at least. Poor Lydia probably had no idea what she was doing to him, how he was letting himself feel purely because his feelings for her held too strong a pull.

“There is,” said Scott, and Stiles’ stomach sank as soon as he knew what Scott was going to say. Of course he was going to say it, and surely he must know that he was not going to do it. “And I know that you don’t want to hear it, but maybe you should just stop helping her, because it’s clearly not helping you.”

“I can’t just,” Stiles replied, stopping halfway through his sentence to inhale slowly and clench his fist as frustration diffused through his veins, coiling deep in his chest. He closed his eyes, sighing. “It’s Lydia.”

“And she doesn’t know how you feel about her,” argued Scott. The anger inside Stiles grew the more Scott made rational sense. He knew that he didn’t want to face the truth about the problems with the situation because he knew there was no way he could give it up, give her up. He’d rather suffer through it and pretend the issue wasn’t there than have everything out in the open where it couldn’t be ignored anymore, because he was in too deep with Lydia to do anything about it.

“She doesn’t know that you feel this unbreakable sense of loyalty towards her because you like her,” Scott continued, protectiveness lacing his voice as he looked up at Stiles with worry shining in his eyes. “The only thing making you feel like you have to help her is you.”

Scott was right, Lydia probably had no idea exactly how Stiles felt about her. He’d told her that he had a crush on her before but she had no idea just how intense his feelings for her were. She was most likely clueless to the fact that seeing her upset caused him actual physical pain, to how she could screw up his focus completely just by walking in a room. She had no idea that being around her used to feel like the sun had moved into his chest, how grateful he was that she was in his life because simply having her there was enough. She didn’t know how badly those feelings had been tainted by pain and suffering and grief, how it was tearing him apart but couldn’t stop being there for her. She had no knowledge of this, so she wasn’t tying them together with unbreakable string, he was.

“But she needs someone to be there for her,” Stiles argued defensively.

“She has other friends,” Scott responded, the truth in his words causing another ball of anger to drop into Stiles’ stomach. “I’ll be there for her, so will Kira.”

Stiles wanted to argue with Scott, to tell him that it was different with him, but that was the problem, things were only different _for_ him. Lydia probably wouldn’t even notice the difference. A shoulder to cry on is a shoulder to cry on, right?

“You need to focus on getting your head in a good place again.” said Scott, switching his authoritative alpha voice on. “Concentrate on helping Malia. You seem really happy when you’re helping her.”

“That’s because she doesn’t make me feel the way Lydia does,” Stiles explained. Helping Malia and helping Lydia were two separate things, two separate reasons. He helped Lydia because he was powerless against his feelings for her, and it was painful and chaotic and fuelled with guilt. Malia was the exact opposite. He helped Malia because she was the only person who understood the guilt he felt about everything that happened while the Nogitsune was in control, given what happened to her family. She was the only person who didn’t make him feel like a monster. “Lydia makes me feel like a wreck, Malia makes me feel normal.”

Scott’s expression became pensive as he took in Stiles’ words and he began chewing his lip in concentration. Suddenly his eyes went wide, the light bulb switching on. Anticipation shot through Stiles like a cold stream of water being injected into his veins as he waited to hear what Scott was going to say.

“Maybe this isn’t about Lydia,” Scott mused aloud, a focused and determined look on his face. He was confident. “Maybe this is about you.”

“What are you saying?” asked Stiles, utterly confused as to where Scott was going with this. The anticipation still spread icily through him as his heart beat quickened impatiently.

“Maybe you still want to feel guilty over everything and keep helping Lydia as a way to torture yourself,” explained Scott, and his words may have well been a ton of bricks that he’d just dropped on Stiles’ head.

“But I hate how helping her makes me feel,” Stiles said in response, a hasty defensiveness to his voice as the reality that Scott was right sunk in. How could he have not seen that was what he was doing? It made total sense now. Of course his feelings for Lydia were part of what kept him going back to her despite the fact it constantly made him feel guilty, but what he didn’t realise was that he liked that guilt, needed it to remind himself not to forget what he’d done.

“Then why do you keep doing it?” asked Scott firmly. A twisted choke of a laugh sounded in Stiles’ throat. Damn, he was more messed up than he thought he was.

“Listen,” Scott continued, his voice much softer now. “I know it’s not what you want, but maybe you should just take a step back from Lydia, purely for your own sake.”

Stiles nodded his head, knowing that he had to do it. He had to deal with this properly, and he couldn’t keep using Lydia just to beat himself up. Bone aching regret seeped into him as he realised the gravity of what he was doing to himself, what he’d been doing to her. His entire body felt drained of energy as he stood there, Scott watching him carefully like he was worried he was about to collapse. Lydia was going to be alright, he told himself. She had the others, and a step back wasn’t cutting her out completely. He could still ask how she was doing and check up on her, but he needed to right himself and deal with whatever he hadn’t for things to get back to normal between them. He knew that now.

“I’ll be there for her, and Kira will,” Scott reassured him, offering a warm smile. “You focus on feeling normal again.”

“Yeah,” Stiles said quietly, his voice shaking slightly as he processed everything. As much as he didn’t want to, he had to change things between him and Lydia. He needed to talk everything through with Scott and do things that helped him feel normal again. The way things were between him and Lydia right now was preventing him from healing, and that couldn’t continue. He knew that she wouldn’t want that, and although it took him longer to admit it, he didn’t want it either.


	16. Chapter 16

“So you’re saying,” said Malia, confusion etched into her features as she and Stiles sat side by side on the edge his bed. She’d been there since he’d got home from school for one of their lessons. They’d been doing this almost every day since he’d agreed to teach her how to be human so she could fully integrate back into the world. “That if stuck in a bad situation, you don’t save yourself and leave your friends behind.”

“Exactly,” he replied, gesturing with his hands. Malia screwed up her face.

“But why?” she asked, appearing bewildered by the notion. “Why risk unnecessary problems for someone else?”

“Because they’re your friend,” explained Stiles again. He’d been teaching her about the value of friendship, something she was having trouble grasping, but he was patient with her. “This is what I’m saying.”

“What’s so important about friends?” Malia asked, her eyebrows knotted together as she looked at him.

“Friends,” Stiles sighed, trying to think of an adequate way to summarise the plethora of different ways that friendship was important so she could understand it. He scratched the back of his neck, pressing his lips together as he tried to conjure an analogy that would make sense. “They’re like a pack,” he continued, his voice slightly louder once he’d thought of a way to explain it. “They have your back when you need it, and in return you have theirs, which means not leaving them behind.” Malia still looked puzzled.

“But in the wild Coyotes leave each other behind all the time,” she explained, the confusion temporarily gone from her face and a soft seriousness in its place. “Especially the weak and injured ones.”

“Well it doesn’t translate across exactly,” Stiles replied, almost laughing. She seemed to have a hard time figuring out that the rules of the animal kingdom didn’t apply to humans, but he humoured her. He didn’t lose patience, and it actually helped him feel calmer. He was helping someone who really needed it, and in turn it was making him see the good in himself again. Things had started to feel different since his talk with Scott. While he hadn’t stopped checking on her completely, he and Lydia hadn’t had one of their meet ups in the middle of the night for a while. He hadn’t felt like he needed one.

“It’s what friends mean to you that keeps you helping them,” he explained, watching her eyes widen attentively as she listened to him. “I mean, feel free to leave behind anyone isn’t your friend, but friends are different. Do you get it?”

“I still don’t understand what it is about friends that make them so important,” Malia said, shaking her head. Stiles briefly closed his eyes. He knew this one was going to take a while for her to understand.

“It’s the bond,” he told her, blinking at her. Surely if wolves formed bonds with other wolves then coyotes had something similar. “Didn’t you have bonds with other coyotes?”

“Not really,” Malia replied matter-of-factly, her eyes narrowed slightly, like she couldn’t understand how he thought otherwise. “It’s the wild, you look after yourself.”

“Well humans aren’t that much different in that respect,” Stiles told her, a harsh laugh sounding from his throat as he contemplated the more insidious aspects of human nature. Then his voice turned soft. “But friends are an exception.”

“Take me and Scott,” he began, titling his head to the side slightly so his body swayed towards hers. She nodded gently, encouraging him to say what he was going to, her eyes attentive. “We’ve known each other since we were little kids. We’ve grown up together, helped each other through so much crap. I’d do anything for him, and he’d do the same for me because we’re bonded as friends.” He could see that she understood the depth of the bond between himself and Scott as he talked about it, he could tell by the way her eyes had softened as he’d talked.

“Do you not remember feeling that loyalty?” he asked her. Surely she must have felt that strongly about someone before, to someone, anyone. “Not even to your family.”

“I try not to think about my family too much,” she answered, a subtle shift in the tone of her voice. He saw a glimmer of pain flash through her eyes. She obviously remembered them, but wanted to forget what she’d done. He could empathise with that. It was that fact they were in similar boats, that people had died while they both weren’t in control of themselves and they were both dealing with the following guilt, that made him feel so close to her in the first place.“But I guess I get what you’re saying.”

“Well friends are kind of like family,” he said, nodding slightly as he talked. “Only you’re not blood related. Like, I think of Scott as more of my brother than my friend.” Malia took her focus away from him for a moment, aiming her eyes at the bedroom floor. Stiles watched as she wrinkled her nose, concentrating hard on something.

“I still don’t get it,” she said with a frustrated sigh, turning back to face him.

“You will,” Stiles reassured her, almost reaching out to touch her arm, but stopping himself before he did. “The power of friendship is a very easy thing to observe.”

“But how do you feel so close to someone that you put their life before your own?” Malia wondered aloud, puzzlement lining her face as she shook her head. “It just makes no sense.”

“You said it, right there,” Stiles told her, his hands flailing around. “You feel it.”

“But how do you protect yourself from predators if you’re busy protecting other people?” she continued asking. Stiles laughed, shaking his head slightly.

“The threats humans face and the threats faced in the animal kingdom are two completely different things,” he explained. “Well at least it is for most people,” he added, realising that his group of friends faced both human and animal kind of threats, but they were an exception rather than the rule. “And you protect yourself because your friends protect you too.”

 Malia just stared at him, still looking completely baffled by everything. Stiles knew he was going to be in for a long journey getting her to understand, but he didn’t mind. He wanted to stick with her and teach her everything as slowly as he needed to until she understood it. He liked Malia, and helping her helped him cope with everything because at least it meant he was doing something good.  It meant that his decency hadn’t been snatched away by that monster.

“Trust me,” he said, smiling at her encouragingly. “You’ll get it eventually.”

They both laughed then, quiet breathy laughs like air being caught in their throats. Their eyes met, and he hoped she could see how much he believed in her. He’d needed people to believe in him, to get him out of that self-deprecating hole he’d dug for himself. If Scott and Lydia and his dad hadn’t been there for him when he wanted to push them away and sink lower into the depths of despair. If they hadn’t pushed him and pushed him to fight it, and it must have taken them a lot of patience, he admitted, then he wouldn’t have been here helping Malia right now. He needed to give that support back to someone else.

Malia’s eyes softened as she looked back at him, and he knew then that she could tell he was there for her. They smiled, a silent acknowledgement that it didn’t matter how long it took her to understand the human world, he was there to help her. Then before he even realised what was happening she closed the space between them and kissed him.

Stiles could barely register what was happening, too overcome by surprise to respond. She pulled away by the time he had fully processed it, so she watched him sitting there open mouthed, blinking rapidly as he tried to catch up with the moment.

“Why did you do that?” he stammered once he’d regained his composure. His heart was hammering in his chest. Things had only just become less chaotic in his head, he didn’t need this complicating everything even more.

“Because I wanted to,” Malia stated bluntly, blinking at him like she couldn’t understand why he was so startled by it. “Is that a problem?” Stiles sighed.

“Here’s your next lesson about being human,” he started to tell her, feeling some of the shock diffuse out of his system. “When you kiss someone, you have to make sure that they want to kiss you back.”

“So you didn’t want me to kiss you?” Malia asked, blinking once at him.

“No,” Stiles blurted, shaking his head. He didn’t want her to think she was the problem here. “No, I didn’t mind it’s just.” He sighed, running a hand through his hair. “You took me by surprise that’s all. Some warning would’ve been nice.”

“Fine,” replied Malia. “I’ll warn you next time.” He swallowed hard. Next time?

“Another thing,” he started. He needed to let her know that he wasn’t in the right emotional place to be getting involved with her just now. He still needed to resolve all of the issues that he had with his feelings for Lydia. “Kissing is a little more complicated than just doing it because you want to.”

“But why?” she asked him, her eyes narrowing. “I wanted to kiss you again, so I did. What’s complicated about that?” He closed his eyes. If only everything were that simple.

“The reasons people kiss each other,” he explained, pausing to take a breath as his own emotions started stirring uncomfortably in his chest. “There’s usually a lot more to it than that.”

“But this time there isn’t,” she responded, her features then tightening in concentration as she tried to make sense of something. “What more to it?”

“Feelings,” he stated, painfully aware of his own as he said it. “Most of the time, when you kiss someone on the lips it means you feel a certain way about them.” She still looked confused.

“Like there are different rules for different types of kissing,” he began informing her, his hands moving over each other and wringing together in his lap. “You remember when you were little and your parents would kiss you on the forehead or cheek?”

“Yeah,” she nodded.

“That’s a little more broad,” he told her, licking his lips as he prepared to finish his point. “But kissing someone on the lips, you don’t just do that with anyone.” He watched her eyes widen as she took in his words. She blinked once. “You do that with someone you really like.”

“But I like you,” she told him. He shook his head.

“It’s a really certain way that you have to like someone,” he explained, trying to think of how to describe it as closely to life as a coyote as he could. “Like a mate.”

“Oh,” she said, nodding as the realisation sunk in. An uncomfortable silence settled between them as they both shifted where they sat, putting another inch of space between them. Malia turned her attention to the floor again and Stiles did the same, trying to push the discomfort from the surprise of the moment that was still lingering in his body out. His head was spinning, still trying to comprehend what had happened.

“All these human rules seem unnecessarily complicated,” stated Malia, an element of annoyance in her voice. Stiles guessed she was right, the rules of being human were complicated an murky and inconsistent, and at times it really was frustrating.

“I know,” he agreed.

“Why are they like that?” she asked, and for the first time, he had absolutely no idea how to answer her question. He barely understood why the world was the way it was himself sometimes, all the pain and the injustice and the complications, how could he explain the reasons to another person?

“Honestly, I don’t even know half the time,” he admitted, tilting his head up so he glanced at his bedroom ceiling before bringing his attention back to Malia.

“But it doesn’t always have to be so complicated,” she said, certainty and confidence in her eyes. Stiles wondered what it was like to be in her head, where things weren’t twisted and messy and driven by rules she didn’t understand. He sighed.

“Yeah. I guess,” he replied, knowing that for some people, life was that simple, in some cases, things weren’t accompanied by various sets of instructions to accompany individual factors. “It’s just that usually it is.” He paused. “I mean sometimes you do kiss someone just because you want to.”

“Is that what happened when we kissed?” asked Malia, and the question almost threw Stiles off as much as her kiss had. “The first time.” She was right. When they’d kissed the first time, he’d done it because she was there and he liked her. She understood how he felt over the destruction that the Nogitsune had already caused and shared her own personal accountabilities. He didn’t know if they were going to be successful in ridding him of the Nogitsune, he’d had no idea if he was going to be lost completely to it. All the rules didn’t seem to matter so much then.

“Yeah,” he said softly. “I guess.” Malia nodded.

“Then why are you overcomplicating this kiss just now?” she asked firmly. “It was just a kiss.”

And once again she was right. He didn’t need to be feeling conflicted over this, because to her, there was nothing more to it. He didn’t need to feel guilty about his feelings for Lydia after Malia had kissed him, because it literally didn’t matter to her. She’d just wanted the kiss, nothing more than that. He was the one making this something it didn’t need to be, purely because he didn’t know how to deal with it any other way. It wasn’t even like Lydia knew about his feelings for her in the first place, he wasn’t bound to her.

“You know what,” he said confidently, relief flooding through him. “You’re right. I don’t know why I’m overthinking this.” Things were rarely ever this straightforward in life, but with Malia they were. She was upfront and direct about everything, never complicating things. In that moment it hit Stiles just how much he appreciated that about her. There was no messy complication, nothing between the lines or things lingering unsaid. What you saw was what you got, and considering that he was still teetering on the edge of being swallowed by his chaotic thoughts and turbulent emotions, he realised how much he needed this friendship with her.


	17. Chapter 17

Lydia let out a tired, exasperated sigh as she stared at her laptop screen, resting her head in her hand. She’d been making a start on the new semester’s work, on top of putting a little extra work into the current mathematic theory she was working on. There was a dreary atmosphere in her bedroom as raindrops rolled down the windows, the low whine of indie music streaming through her IPod speakers overpowering the soothing hum of the downpour outside. The main light in her bedroom was off, but the glare from her laptop and the glow from the lamp on her nightstand bathed the room in just enough light that it wasn’t thoroughly depressing.

She glanced away from her screen, looking at the photograph of herself and Allison that sat there in its decorative frame. It was times like this when she missed Allison the most, when she was feeling lonely. As the New Year had begun, the constant crushing pain that had been with her as she made sense of Allison’s death had simmered into a dull ache, flaring up at moments like this. She looked back at the essay paragraph on her screen, and then down at the notes of formulas and equations littered all over her desk from scraps of paper torn out of pastel coloured notebooks.

The little twenty four hour clock in the bottom corner of Lydia’s screen read 20:26. She groaned, dragging her hands over her face. It was only eight pm. The day had dragged so hard, especially this evening, that she was surprised that it wasn’t nearing midnight. She wanted to give up working on her assignments and on her formulas for the night and go and take a nice long shower, but a part of her didn’t want to admit that she had started to feel so lonely that the highlight of her day was having a shower.

Lydia didn’t quite understand how it had happened, how everything had gone from feeling so optimistic and steady, like they were finally moving forwards on the road to being okay again, back to this. One moment everything was fine and then slowly everything had fallen apart. She tried to figure out what had happened, what had caused things to change so drastically over a few short weeks, but so far she had come up with little. The one thing she knew for certain was that this returning feeling of loneliness had everything to do with Stiles.

It was Stiles, or more specifically, the arrangement of mutual support that Lydia had in place with Stiles, that had been the catalyst in this. Through the end of November and most of December, they had been there for each other whenever the other needed them, supporting each other through everything. She was struggling with Allison’s death and he was struggling to make sense of all the damage the Nogitsune did and where his own morality fit in all of that. It had been working for Lydia. Having him there to help her through everything made it so much more bearable, and seeing him get better alongside her was just as satisfying. But things changed in the week leading up to Christmas. The contact between them started to slowly dwindle, until they barely spoke at all.

The most frustrating part was that it was all his fault. She had tried everything to keep things the way they had been between the two of them, but he just seemed to drift away. She was hurt, furious with him for doing this to her. She still needed him, and he’d just disappeared as soon as things started going okay for him. It wasn’t fair, and Lydia knew that she still had other friends who had been great to her, but after Allison it was him that she was closest to, and the strength of the presence he had in her life left a tangible hole now that they were barely speaking.

As many times she’d tried to tell herself that it was coincidental, that he probably didn’t even realise he was doing it, it was him proving her wrong that had shocked her the most. At first, their communication decreasing wasn’t that much of a concern to her. It meant that things were progressing, that they didn’t need each other so frequently for support, and that was a good thing. They were still there for each other when they needed it, like on the one month anniversary of Allison’s death, but after that was when things started to go downhill. Stiles got busy helping Malia learn how to be human, and at first Lydia was happy for him. Helping her was helping him too, helping him lessen the guilt he felt about all the deaths that had happened because of the Nogitsune. She could see it in him so clearly, and she was glad. She hoped that the nightmares would fade and he could finally begin to forgive himself. Clearly it had helped, because a few weeks after he’d been helping Malia consistently he pretty much stopped calling Lydia altogether.

She could have forgiven him for it, if he hadn’t stopped returning her calls too. She tried to tell herself that the first few times were coincidences, that his phone had died or he’d been out of the room so he’d missed her calls and given that sometimes it was like he couldn’t focus on anything for longer than thirty seconds, had been distracted from checking his phone once he’d come back. But Lydia was done pretending on the eve of the two month anniversary of Allison’s death when she called him and he picked up, but told her he was busy. She could hear another voice in the background, too quiet to make out, but she knew who it was.

It was obvious that Stiles and Malia had grown a lot closer as he’d helped her. She’d noticed weeks ago. It was always her that he was busy with, and it hurt Lydia more than it probably should have. She just didn’t understand why he couldn’t be there for Malia and her at the same time. It seemed like he’d completely forgotten about her. It wasn’t just the phone calls either, their interactions in person had dwindled to nothing too. It was subtle at the start. The amount of time they spent together outside of school started to decrease, because he was always with Malia. It didn’t hurt so much at first, she and Kira started spending a lot more time together, and Scott went out of his way to talk to her and make sure she was okay. But it wasn’t the same. Scott was a good friend and a great alpha, but he wasn’t Stiles. Their relationship wasn’t the same.

 New Years Eve was what really highlighted just how distant they were becoming. Scott had everyone over at his for a small gathering and she and Stiles barely said a word to each other the whole time. Lydia stayed with Kira and Stiles with Malia the whole night, Scott bouncing between the two pairs. They’d had hour’s worth of opportunities to talk, but they just didn’t. Lydia had almost left early, consumed with anger and hurt over the fact that the person who had been her rock a few short weeks ago now barely even looked at her.

She couldn’t believe he’d done it, Stiles of all people. He was always the one person who had been there for her without fail ever since she’d started to get to know him. He’d supported her through everything, made her feel comfortable with vulnerability and letting people see her cry. He‘d encouraged her when she doubted herself and lifted her up when she’d needed it. That was what hurt the most in all of this. That the one person who had never let her down just did, right when she needed him the most.

Lydia pushed the screen of her laptop down, deciding to finally give up. She rose from the desk chair, pulling at the bottom of the black floral shirt she was wearing to straighten out the creases from where it had bunched up while she was sat at her desk. She wandered over to her bedroom mirror, taking a long look at herself. Her hair was piled on top of her head in a messy bun, and the bright green cardigan she was wearing over her shirt stood out in the darkness, but it was her face that caught her attention.

Her eyes looked tired, her lips sagging into a frown. She could see the loneliness on her, how much she missed both Allison and Stiles. She was overcome with frustration then, it crashing through her so forcefully that she struggled not clenching her fists and screaming. She hated how he’d made her feel, and the fact that he seemed so oblivious to it all just made everything worse. She stormed over to her nightstand where her phone sat, checking her notification free lock screen. Her heart sunk as she saw the lack of messages or missed calls, and she wondered why she was still feeling so disappointed. She thought she should be used to it by now, it had been the same for weeks.

 With all the anger coursing through her, a part of her wanted to call him right now and demand answers. Her veins were hot and pulsing as she thought about it more, sending blood rushing in her ears. She unlocked the phone and scrolled through her contacts, finding his name as her finger hovered above selecting call. A deep ache shot through her chest and she stopped herself. She didn’t want to have to listen to his voicemail again. _Hey, this is Stiles and you missed me. Leave a message._ She couldn’t hear those words one more time.

Lydia threw her phone down on the bed, standing up and walking away from it. It didn’t make sense, none of this made sense. Had she done something? Or was he just too caught up in whatever was going on between him and Malia to notice her anymore. She told herself to try and not let it bother her, that she could do this on her own. But she’d never doubted that, she’d just liked having him there because he made her feel comforted and secure. He was her best friend after Allison, and friends did not do this to each other. She had every right to be angry. The sudden interruption of her phone vibrating on the bed shook Lydia out of her anger induced reverie.

Was it Stiles? Was her first thought as she raced over to the phone, disappointment flooding through her when Scott’s caller ID flashed on her screen.

“Hey, Scott,” she said, trying to prevent the aching upset that was leaking from her heart from appearing in her voice. “What’s up?”

“Hey,” Scott’s voice said on the other end. “Are you busy right now?”

“No,” replied Lydia, biting back the sarcastic comment on the tip of her tongue over her predicament. Scott had nothing to do with this, she didn’t need to bring this issue to him. “Why?”

“Can you get to the animal clinic?” asked Scott, and the pain in Lydia’s chest turned to anxiety as she heard the desperation in his voice. Something was wrong, she could feel it.

“Yeah I can,” she told him, already moving around her room to grab her keys. “What’s wrong Scott?”

“It’s Derek,” Scott answered. “I think something has happened to Derek.” It hit Lydia that they hadn’t seen or heard from Derek in weeks. After the Nogitsune fallout and Allison’s death he’d kept his distance from them as they grieved, but as they started to come out the other side of it, Lydia couldn’t even recall seeing him once.

“I’m on my way,” she told Scott before hanging up, uneasiness crashing through her in waves. Their next supernatural battle may be closer than she thought.

As Lydia got in her car, turning on the heating to blast out the January chill and dry away the mist of rain that had fallen on her, she realised that seeing Stiles was inevitable. She took a deep breath, pushing away all the anger and the hurt for Scott’s sake. She could work with him for the sake of everyone else but she wasn’t going to forget what he’d done. As her car started rolling off the drive, she told herself that despite everything that had happened, she was doing fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well that's the end. I know its not a very happy ending but I needed to get this story idea out of my system, especially as I've recently been re-watching season 3B and 4. I will be writing a one-shot that can be read as an epilogue for this fic, where the issues presented at the end of this story get resolved, and a link to it should be posted at the end of this story once I upload it. Thank you all for reading.


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